


Eight Bijuu and Counting

by Timballisto



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Konoha - Freeform, Sannin Era, timetravel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timballisto/pseuds/Timballisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I may have, um, destroyed the statue containing the eight Bijuu." Naruto stammered. "I think I, ah, accidently missed with Rasenshuriken and I, er, kind of hit the statue. It-" he coughed uncomfortably. "disentigrated." Timetravel!Sannin Era</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Almost Dead On Arrival

The atmosphere in the forest could only be described as ominous. Towering trees loomed overhead, blocking the morning sun, casting dark shadows upon the thick foliage. The occasional calls of wild beasts filtered through air, the mere sound was enough to send the more timid beings scurrying for shelter.

Jiraiya shivered slightly as he looked up at the foreboding trees, keeping an eye out for any enemies hidden among the dappled shadows. Shifting slightly in his still uncomfortable chuunin jacket, he was beginning to wish he hadn't done so well in the exams. After all, if he was a genin, he wouldn't have been sent on this scouting mission to the north eastern front, a creepy, desolate moor that was nestled against the neutral Mizugakure.

In a word, it was a pointless waste of his, and Tsunade's time.

But, a lecherous smile twisted Jiraiya's mouth; it would be worth it if he could accidently stumble on Tsunade while bathing… a slight nosebleed trickled down his upper lip before he hurriedly wiped it away.

"Hurry up!" Tsunade called back, irritated at her slow companion.

"Coming , my hime!"

"Don't call me that you hentai!" Tsunade bit back at her smug teammate. Honestly, she thought, rolling her eyes in exasperation. Maybe if he acted less like the eleven year old he was- they were- then maybe they could've graduated to Jounin with Orochimaru instead of staying Chuunin.

Though, Tsunade thought bitterly, that might have been something to do with all the private tutoring that Sarutobi-sensei had been giving him, including one of the great summoning contracts for the Hebi clan.

"Of course Tsunade-hime-"

"Shut up!" Tsunade barked, whirling around and lodging a punch in the side of Jiraiya's head. "Baka!

"Heh…" Jiraiya mumbled, holding a large lump nestled in his nest of wild white hair. "You've still got it."

Tsunade sighed in exasperation, continuing onward through the small footpath carved through the thick brush. Sometimes, trying to get Jiraiya to behave was trying to reason with a toddler.

"Tsunade, watch out!" Tsunade's head snapped up and her eyes widened as she looked down a hundred foot drop, one foot already off the edge. Her eyes dilated as she took in the crater shape and the solid limestone that lined the sides, even as she began her descent over the edge…

"Gotcha!" A strong arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her back, sending the both of them sprawling backwards.

Tsunade attempted to get her breathing under control and stop the tremors in her hands from her brush with the shinigami. "Thank you, Jiraiya." Tsunade muttered, levering herself off of his body.

"Don't mention it." Jiraiya waved it off. "Really, don't mention it, or Nawaki will try to kill me again."

Tsunade looked at him sideways. "What does Nawaki have to do with it?

"He's your incompetent, over-protective midget brother." Jiraiya sighed, before moving forward and ending the conversation. "Anyway, what do you think this is?" he gestured at the huge crater.

"It looks like someone decided to pack a couple thousand exploding tags into the ground." Tsunade remarked dryly, squinting to take in the other side of the half-mile wide crater. "Or they decided to practice their kinjutsu."

"We've got to report this to the Hokage." Jiraiya said, for once, actually serious. The war was just barely starting to go in their favor, the Cloud shinobi having been driven back on the north eastern front, and only the dwindling Ame-nin were keeping up the fight, egged on by Hanzo. If someone was throwing around jutsu that could easily take out a small town without much fuss… this did not bode well for the war effort.

With a nod, both Tsunade and Jiraiya disappeared into the trees, double-timing it to Konoha.

In the exact center of the crater, a small bird, inquisitive and hungry hopped along the loose ash, poking around for food. Ahead, its beady eyes could make out a curious outcropping, poking out of the earth. With a chirp, the bird quickly pecked on the anomaly, and was rewarded with a shower of sand, grit, and ash.

Naruto sputtered and cradled his bleeding nose, swearing up a storm. Beside him, the ash shifted and the dirty face of one Sakura Haruno emerged, blinking dirt off of her eyelashes. Both seventeen year olds looked decidedly worse for wear.

"Ugh," she moaned grabbing her aching head. "I like Tsunade-shishou punched me in the head."

"That's funny," Naruto groused, shaking his head like a dog to raise dust clouds from his dingy blond hair. "I feel like you just punched me in the head."

"Ha." Sakura mumbled, attempting to lever herself out of her small bed of dirt. "What the hell happened?"

Naruto squinted, attempting to recall what had happened before everything went fuzzy. "I remember fighting Pein…" he said, fingering his shredded jacked and ragged pants. Apparently he had taken a beating; all that was left of his forehead protector was the metal plate in his hand. "And he said he was going to bring everyone back after I kicked his ass."

Sakura's head shot in Naruto's direction. "You mean…" She started, not wanting to let herself get her hopes up.

"Everyone's probably alive back in Konoha," Naruto exclaimed, a bright grin alighting his face as his ocean-blue eyes sparkled. Sakura smiled brightly in return, dizzying relief making her feel weightless. The emotion was fleeting, only briefly distracting her from their puzzling predicament.

"Do you remember anything else?" Sakura asked, impatient. She wanted to know why she was waist deep in incinerated matter.

"Uh… oh…well, shit." Naruto mumbled, rubbing his head.

"Naruto, what did you do?" Sakura growled, cracking her knuckles.

"Um, well, don't get mad Sakura-chan-"

"Na-ru-to…"

"I may have destroyed the statue containing the eight Bijuu." Naruto cringed. "Uh, that weird guy in the spirally orange mask may have said he'd track you down and rip you to pieces, so I may have accidently missed with Rasenshuriken and I, er, kind of hit the statue."

"And…" Sakura's voice was quiet and dangerous.

"It disentigrated." Naruto said with a small voice, cringing slightly.

"Baka no Naruto!" Sakura yelled, a vein throbbing in her temple. "You shouldn't have taken such a risk! What part of bijuu do you not understand! You don't sling around double SS techniques like that when they could either kill you, or destroy the world!"

"But he was going to kill you!" Naruto protested, waving his arms around, dislodging the ash from his shoulders.

"It wasn't worth releasing eight demons into the world!" Sakura barked. "I'm not worth the millions of people who would suffer!" She was going to continue, but Sakura took one look at Naruto's guilty expression before let out her frustration with a huff. "It's alright Naruto." Sakura said quietly, letting her hand fall into her lap. "You were just trying to protect me, if anything; it's my fault for being too weak." Sakura felt her tone grow bitter, but didn't bother to cover it up.

"You're not weak Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed, his blue eyes earnest as he looked at his best friend and teammate. "You killed Sasori remember?"

Sakura scowled. "I haven't exactly… killed any Akatsuki since then, have I?"

"Don't sell yourself short Sakura-chan." Naruto admonished exuberantly. "After you made jonin, didn't Baa-chan tell us we surpassed our sensei? We're both wanted in every enemy county's bingo book as S-ranked Konoha jounin, just like Kakashi-sensei!"

Sakura smiled slightly, a small spark of pride warming her insides. Heh, I guess Naruto hasn't lost his confidence, and it seems becoming a jounin has toned him down a little.

"For I am Uzumaki Naruto; Future Hokage and the one and only Toad Sage!" Naruto grinned, copying one of Rock Lee's ridiculous poses.

Sakura sweat dropped. Or maybe not. "Come on Naruto, we've got to get back to Konohagakure, or what's left of it." She added morbidly under her breath.

"I'm looking forward to some Ichiraku ramen! It's been days!" Naruto shouted, thrusting a fist into the air. This, unfortunately, had the side effect of ripping the seam of his jacket, leaving him with two halves of his once whole orange and black shinobi wear.

"We need some new clothes first." Sakura sighed, watching with no little amusement as Naruto wept over his beloved orange jacket.

"Holy sh—" Naruto breathed, staring out at Konoha from his position in one of the taller trees just on the outside of the walls.

"No way." Sakura agreed.

Most of Konoha seemed the same as it did before Pein's attack. Naruto could pick out the Hokage Tower and the Acadamy from his viewpoint, and had a perfect view of the Hokage cliff.

Which was missing two faces.

"Are we-?"

"I think we are." Naruto said, uncharacteristically solemn.

"This is impossible! There is no jutsu that can send us back in time… absolutely not!" Sakura said. "This has got to be a genjutsu." Putting her hands into the handsign, Sakura's chakra pulsed. "Kai! Kai!"

"Maybe we're in a bloodline genjutsu, like Tsukyomi." Naruto pointed out, scratching his head in confusion. "That Pein guy had weird orangey eyes, so maybe it's like Itachi and his freaky Sharingan."

After trying to dispel a few more times, Sakura gave up. Sitting back hard on her branch, Sakura stared out at the expanse of Konohagakure, blinking hard. The loss of her home was compounded by the fake one in front of her. All her friends...Ino…Shizune… all gone and now, this village that wasn't Konohagakure but was, brought back the crippling loss of her shinobi family.

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut tight, squashing the small niggling hope that this wasn't a genjutsu, and that she had actually traveled through time and that she could walk in there as Sakura Haruno and all of the Rookie Nine would be there, and no one would be crushed or decapitated and everyone was alive and well…

"Naruto, can't you ask Kyuubi?" Sakura's voice shook slightly. "He should know what's going on right?"

Naruto grinned and nodded. "Good idea Sakura-chan. If anything, Kyuubi always loves to lord stuff over me, so he'll enjoy telling me that we're stuck in some unbreakable technique." Naruto screwed up his face in concentration, focusing his chakra and his mind on the seal emblazoned on his stomach. "His chakra is still in the seal." Naruto said, his brow furrowed as his senses extended. "There's less than usual, as if some was still floating around somewhere, outside the seal…" he gulped, blanching at the thought. "I think there's at least a tail of chakra missing- not enough to cause permanent damage but enough…"

"Hey, you could beat Ichibi well enough." Sakura reasoned, patting him on the back. "A mere one tailed Kyuubi isn't going to stop you, is it?"

Naruto blushed slightly at the compliment, scratching the back of his head. "Guess not."

"So we don't know if it's reality or a genjutsu then." Sakura said, her mind flitting back to the main problem as she tried to think up a kinjutsu she had read about that had the ability to turn back time. She came up blank.

"We'll just have to check it out, then."

Sakura glanced up sharply, startled. Naruto had been so quiet, and now, his face was deadly serious.

"Genjutsu can't get every little detail right." Naruto said quietly. "Between the both of us, and what we know of our sensei, I'm guessing we can find out whether we are stuck in a genjutsu or not."

The Konoha guards blinked as a pair of silhouettes made their way down the dusty main road to Konoha, their bright attire standing out against the green and brown colors of the forest. There were two of them, a blond and a pinkette, their attire (the color scheme seemed to involve lots of red and orange) was definitely shinobi quality, an observation confirmed by the kunai holsters attached to their legs.

"Halt." One of the duo of chuunin stepped forward. "What is your business here?"

"Ah," the pink haired one stepped forward and bowed slightly. "I am Haruno Sakura and this is my associate Uzumaki Naruto." The blonde one grinned and waved, his bright smile relaxing the guards somewhat. "We're looking for work, hiring shinobi?"

"Eh, an Uzumaki?" The chuunin in charge replied neutrally, signaling for one of the chuunin runners to summon a jounin to the gate. "I thought your clan was neutral in this war, why join now all of a sudden?"

"Eh?" Naruto scratched his head. "Clan? I've never heard of any Uzumaki Clan, I didn't have any parents and my sensei didn't tell me about it…" Naruto shrugged, ignoring the disbelieving eyes of the chuunin duo. "And as for joining…" Naruto grinned, his eyes crinkling in a way that reminded the chuunin guards of a kitsune. "I want to kick some Ame ass, dattebayo!"

"Baka!" Sakura shouted, slamming her fist into the back of Naruto's head, sending him face down into the dirt.

"What he means to say is," Sakura said apologetically, ignoring the groaning of her teammate next to her. "We have nothing against Kumo –nin really, but we kind of have a grudge against Amegakure.

"Really?" one of the chuunin said, unconvinced of the story.

"Ame-nin are making it hard for us homeless nin to make a living." Naruto explained as he ruefully rubbed his head. "They kill all the missing-nin they come across so we can't join the opposition and they kill all of our potential clients!"

Sakura rolled her eyes, sharing an amused look with the chuunin guards, acting like this sort of rant happened all the time.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura could see the concealed form of a nin in the shade of the gates and, as she felt out with her chakra, she had to forcibly restrain a gasp. The chakra was a familiar white, and felt an awful lot like-

Kakashi-sensei?

"Aa, Muhei-kun," a deep, mellow voice came from the concealed ninja. "We have visitors?" As the speaker came into the light, Sakura had to force herself to gulp as a pang of grief rang in her chest. The man in front of her was not Kakashi Hatake, sensei of Team Seven and leader of Team Kakashi. Though he shared the familiar face mask, silver hair and the lidded grey eyes, this man was not the ninja she had come to see as a surrogate father after her own civilian family had disowned her.

No, this man was not Kakashi Hatake. But, she knew who he was.

"Sakumo Hatake, Jounin of Konoha." The man said, his eyes crinkling in a way she had come to recognize as a smile.

"Sakura." The medic-nin said, tilting her head to get the full measure of Konoha's White Fang, the father of the Copy Nin.

"My name's Naruto Uzumaki old man, and don't you forget it!" Naruto said loudly, pointing at the slightly amused jounin's face. In the background, several chuunin looked absolutely traumatized that they would do anything less than kiss the ground the White Fang walked on.

"Well, aren't we excited?" Sakumo said, raising a single silver eyebrow. "You don't seem like much of a ninja."

Naruto puffed up indignantly. "What the hell do you know?" he said rudely. "I'm the holder of the toad contract, and the official Toad Sage! Respect me dammit!"

"You summon the toads?" One of the chuunin said, disbelief coloring his voice.

"Yep!" Naruto grinned and pointed at his chest. "I'm gonna be the best ninja ever!"

"Naruto…" Sakura groaned, smacking her face. They were supposed to be nondescript, not magnets for attention.

"The best ninja ever huh?" Sakumo said, scratching his masked chin. "You know, the ones that boast are usually just full of hot air."

"Hey!" Naruto said angrily, crossing his arms. "I sweated blood and tears to get to my current level, with barely any help!"

Well, it was partly true, Sakura thought to herself. It's not like the Academy instructors ever helped him, and Kakashi, though a great commander, was a lousy teacher. Truly, only his three years and short tenures with Jiraiya-sama and Yamato-sense had ever really taught him anything, she thought with a twinge of guilt.

"Ano, Hatake-sama," Sakura said, trying to placate her teammate. "Naruto still has to work on his social skills, please excuse his behavior."

"Hmph." Sakumo grinned slightly at the death glare that Sakura was giving her partner. These two are the most fun I've had all week. "Well, I suppose I can let it slide…"

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto waved the older nin off. "I just wanna help you guys kill some Ame-nin, save the world, end the war, yadda yadda yadda."

This time, Sakumo couldn't restrain his chuckle. "Well, we're not one to turn down volunteers, but you'll understand that we want to make sure you have no past affiliation with Ame or Kumo, right?"

In an instant, Naruto and Sakura were surrounded by a squad of masked ANBU, though neither tensed, or showed any sign of resisting.

"I was wondering when you guys were going to show up." Naruto said confidently. "Sakura detected you guys two minutes ago."

Naruto shared a smirk with Sakura before they turned their attention back onto Sakumo.

Sakumo smothered his brief flare of surprise before turning to the ANBU. "Bind their chakra and take them to Yamanaka-san." He spared a brief look back at the calm faces of the two homeless shinobi. "Please don't struggle, its procedure."

Naruto and Sakura simple stood while an ANBU stepped forward and slapped chakra repressing seals on their backs foreheads, a simple chakra exercise keeping the paper stuck to their faces. Sakura immediately felt her reserves, which were about the size of Tsunade-shishou's own chakra pool, dwindle by a quarter.

Naruto, on the other hand, barely felt the difference. The seal wasn't configured like the containment seals Yamato-sensei used to slap on him whenever Kyuubi got out of control. These were inked for a normal, jounin level opponent, not someone who could perform A-ranked ninjutsu at age twelve.

Naruto allowed himself a little grin. He had the advantage here, and if things got out of hand, he knew he could take Sakura and make a break for it.

Sakura shrugged. "We're not your enemies and we don't have anything to hide." That wasn't entirely true, Sakura thought guiltily. They had plenty to hide; they just didn't need to worry about the usual Konoha trump card, the Yamanaka mind jutsu.

After all, not many nin had the shielding properties of the Yondaime's seal or an Inner version of yourself ready to defend your mind without a moment's notice. In fact, Sakura thought, it would probably be best to alert them of this fact. For one thing, it usually drove the jutsu caster insane (Ino was lucky she knew when to draw back, or she'd probably had sustained permanent brain damage) and the Konoha shinobi would think they had something to hide.

"Ah, you should probably avoid using those weird mind probe jutsu on us." Naruto said, echoing Sakura's thoughts.

"And why is that?" Sakumo asked, leading the squad on a dash across the rooftops.

"Both of us have mind based kekkei genkkai." Sakura said, purposefully ignoring the tensing of the ANBU around her. "It makes us impervious to mind penetration, and is more likely going to drive the interrogator insane than anything else."

"Hm." Sakumo hummed in agreement, in the same laid back way that Sakura recognized from Shikamaru and Kakashi. "Well, we'll keep that in mind."

Naruto snickered at the pun, and Sakura forcibly restrained the urge to hit him. Naruto snickered again.

This time, Sakura gave into temptation and the following groan was worth the extra chakra suppression sutra she had to deal with.


	2. Reality Break

Sakura Haruno was not intimately acquainted with the T&I cells beneath the Hokage Tower. She vaguely remembered dark, twisting tunnels and the foul stench of blood and mold but beyond her patients health (after all, why else would a medic-nin be there in the first place?) she hadn't taken much notice of the layout of the place.

Something that Sakura was regretting, if only to escape the annoying invasive questions the interrogators kept asking.

Even now, the light of a bright lamp shining into her eyes, Sakura had to resist the urge to snort in derision. They had nothing on Ibiki's intimidation tactics and they didn't even touch Anko in the physical torture department.

"…honestly." Sakura muttered, ignoring the blabbering rookie interrogator. "Who cut funding to this place?"

"Do you have an issue with our methods Haruno-san?"

Sakura looked up, squinting against the lamp. She was barely able to make out the fuzzy outline of Sakumo before she had to close her eyes.

"Turn the goddamn light off you incompetent idiot!" Sakura barked at the man who was supposed to be interrogating her. "Honestly, are you a genin? That had to be the worst example of psychoanalysis I have ever been subjected to!"

"Hey-!"

"You are dismissed Hantou-san." Sakumo's dry voice preceded the soft flick of the switch and the immediate relief of darkness for Sakura's aching eyes.

"Is that the best Konoha can do?" Sakura asked incredulously, rubbing at her eyes with the limited range of motion her shackles offered her.

"Well…" Sakumo rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, his eyes smiling at her. Sakura felt her heart catch in her throat and she blinked rapidly to forestall tears. After all, this man wasn't Kakashi was he? Kakashi hadn't been born yet, he wasn't alive, and so he couldn't be killed yet…

"We're working on it." Sakumo's voice brought her back to reality. "Unfortunately, not many want to torture people for a living…" Sakumo shrugged.

"I'd imagine not." Sakura mumbled. "What about the hospital?"

"What?" Sakumo asked blankly.

"How many medics do you have working at the hospital?"

Sakumo's eyes became guarded. "I'm afraid that's classified."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'm not asking because I want to kill them. I'm a medic myself."

One of the jounn's white eyebrows went up. "Really."

The pink haired kunoichi rolled her eyes. "No, I'm making it up- of course I am! Did you not recognize my chakra when you met me at the gate?"

"No."

"Dear Kami," Sakura muttered, her eyes shut in resignation. "What kind of joke is this?" She remembered vaguely that lack of security had led to a great number of civilian deaths during this period from history at the academy, but never to this extent.

"Anyway," Sakumo waved off Sakura's sarcasm. "You've passed all of the interrogations and have been revealed to have had no past affiliations with any of Konoha's enemies. However, you and your friend Uzumaki-san are to be watched continuously for an unspecified amount of time and spot-checked over the course of your enrollment." Sakura nodded wearily, motioning for him to continue.

"A skill evaluation is to take place a week from today in order to gauge ability and rank." Snapping off a lazy salute, Sakumo disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Enjoy your psyche examinations!"

'This is freaky.' Sakura thought as she trudged down the dusty main road that lead from the Hokage tower to the residential district. Everywhere, she could see the familiar buildings and street names that she had grown up with, though less faded and worn. The marks of the Oto-Suna Invasion were gone, as were the tell-tale piles of rubble from Pein's Invasion.

All in all, it was like being back before Akatsuki, Orochimaru and Sound were nuisances, back when Team Seven was whole and doing routine D and C rank missions.

It was giving her a huge headache.

"Ah Sakura-chan!" Sakura groaned as she rubbed her aching temples. It would have been too much to ask for a little peace and quiet right now, wouldn't it?

"I don't have time for your blather Naruto." She said tiredly. "This place is giving me a headache."

"Everything is different!" Naruto exclaimed, ignoring Sakura completely in his excitement "I went to Ichirakus today, and Teuchi-san was only ten! Ten!"

"That's nice." Sakura sighed, intent on finding the apartment that the Hokage had set aside for them, until they could start taking missions at least.

"And do you remember Sakumo?"

How could she forget?

"Yeah, well he's Kakashi's-"

"-dad, yes I know." Sakura finished for him, making her way to their brick apartment building. "And yes, I realize he's only fifteen but he looks like he's twenty. Naruto, Kakashi was my sensei too."

"Right…" Naruto smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head in chagrin.

"Let's just get to our apartment, okay?" Sakura muttered as she trudged up the linoleum lined stairs to the second floor. "I want to sleep."

Five minutes later, Sakura and Naruto were settling into their two bedroom apartment, scoping out the small bathroom, kitchen, and living room.

"Man," Naruto whined as he kicked off his sandals and lounged on the large worn brown couch. "This place is just like my old apartment; A dump!"

Indeed, Sakura thought, grimacing at the dingy state of the walls and the carpet. It did look a lot like Naruto's apartment during his genin days, before he had been able to upgrade to a nice complex with a jounin's salary.

"And we have basically no supplies." Sakura said as she fingered her clothing. All they had managed to find were civilian clothes hanging on a line, simple tee's and pants that had been the least restrictive of all of the other articles they found; definitely not shinobi quality gear. "Or clothes."

"Or food." Naruto moaned. "I wanna go to Ichiraku's!"

"Haven't you already gone, what, twice today?" Sakura asked incredulously as she made her way into the kitchen to inspect the utilities and their barren fridge.

"So?" Naruto said, his voice approaching the octave that he knew would make Sakura cave. "Pleeeease? Please! Sakura-chan, I wanna go get some ramen? Besides," Naruto said, his voice dipping lower into a sly tone. "I know a lot about Teuchi-ojisan, so this can count towards the genjutsu theory!"

"Fine." Sakura sighed, giving into Naruto's force of nature personality. She knew that resistance was futile.

"Ahhh…" Naruto grinned as he slurped down his seventh bowl of beef ramen, much to the horror of Sakura's dwindling pocketbook. "That hits the spot."

"No more." Sakura said quickly as Naruto started on his eight (and if she had anything to say about it) last bowl. "We still have to buy some clothes tomorrow, remember?"

"Jus' gwan 'ore?" Naruto begged through his mouthful of noodles.

"No, Naruto, you can't have another bowl." Sakura said primly as she dipped into her only halfway finished first course. "I need shinobi equipment too."

The conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence between the hiss of the noodles being boiled in the back of the stall and the soft click and clack of chopsticks against bowl.

"-know this great place hime!"

"No, you pervert, I won't go anywhere with you-"

"Aw! Just one date?"

Naruto blinked as he turned to look over his shoulder out at the street, a stray noodle hanging haphazardly out of his mouth. What-

"Holy shit." Sakura breathed, quickly taking a quick look underneath the fringe of the privacy cloth before whirling back to her meal.

"What is it Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, puzzled, even as the two almost familiar voices came nearer.

"-if you paid less attention to your stupid porn and more to training then maybe we'd be jounin by now!" The voice was definitely female, Naruto wasn't that stupid.

"It wouldn't have made a difference!" the male voice retorted, the sound of the duo's footsteps easily discernable now. "You know Sarutobi-sensei gives Oro-baka preferential treatment because he's a genius. " Naruto could hear the sneer in the inflections of the sentence. "I asked sensei for a summoning contract, but sensei said he was too busy 'cause he's Hokage. Bullshit! He always seemed to have time for him! Why not us?"

Naruto froze. No… surely not…?

"I'm just saying Tsunade-hime…"

No… sensei is… dead. No…

"You're just jealous Jiraiya."

Baa-chan…

"No way…" Naruto muttered, his blue eyes wide and his heart thumping erratically in his chest. "Not… Ero-sannin…"

Sakura flinched as she felt the familiar chakra signature of her future master settle into the stool right next to her. Out of the corner of her eyes, Sakura could see the familiar annoyed expression and blonde hair minus the small violet seal on her forehead and the conspicuously absent sake bottle.

It was definitely Tsunade, her master, her Hokage and one of her closest friends, at eleven.

Oh…shit.

Naruto froze as the familiar head of white hair came into his vision. Even though he was two people away, on the other right of Baa-chan (who wasn't really Baa-chan anymore) Naruto could sense the familiar aura of Jiraiya's chakra and caught a glimpse of the familiar red tattoos (though shorter) on his face. Naruto leaned forward, his hair shadowing his eyes as he continued to eat his ramen faster than before.

Naruto still remembered the numbing grief that had consumed him when he learned of Jiraiya's death, and the raw anger and tears that had fueled his rage against Pein.

He had come to peace with Jiraiya's death, even his murderer had received his forgivness…but this; this was not something he could just ignore. Genjutsu or not, he wasn't prepared, he couldn't handle this.

Quickly downing his ramen, Naruto stood up. "I'll meet you at the apartment." Naruto's voice was low and raspy with suppressed grief.

"I'll go with you." Sakura muttered, choking down her own tears as she threw down what they owed onto the table. After all, the last time she had seen her shishou, she had been withered and dying in a coma.

Tsunade blinked as the older woman beside her stood up abruptly, along with her blond, whiskered friend. She had almost immediately noticed the two sitting at the ramen bar when she had walked in with Jiraiya. With the bright, exotic pink and blond hair it was hard to miss them. She also hadn't missed the tensing of their shoulders when they had sat down, and the way they had both immediately gobbled their food and left.

"Weird…" Tsunade muttered, her gold eyes narrowed as she stared after the pink haired young woman and her companion. Though they didn't wear the headbands of Konohagakure, they were definitely shinobi, given away by their silent footsteps and developed chakra auras.

And the pink haired kunoichi… she was a medic, Tsunade could tell by the subtle thrum of her aura.

Tsunade had a bad habit of cycling through sensei. She learned medical ninjutsu so easily that she hadn't kept a single teacher for more than a few months, something that she supposed was really affecting her skills. After all, she wanted to be a field medic, so she needed to be able to blend her jutsu into a seemless style fit for fighting. Her goal was rather hard to achieve when everything she'd learned had been cobbled together from six different teachers. As it happened, she was due for a new sensei right about now...

Tsunade smirked before turning back to her pork ramen. That kunoichi would have no idea what hit her.

As soon as Sakura woke up the next morning, she knew Naruto wasn't in the apartment. The comforting, encompassing blanket of his enormous chakra wasn't filling the house and the regular rhythm of his snores couldn't be heard from her room across the hall.

After pulling on her only set of clothes (Sakura made a note to go shopping with Naruto as soon as possible), Sakura quickly exited the apartment, making her way down the nearly empty streets. It was, after all, five in the morning.

After a quick bite at the cheapest food stall she could find that was actually open at this hour (after all, only shinobi got up this early, and most stalls weren't run by shinobi), Sakura made her way to the one place she knew she would find Naruto.

Training Ground Seven.

And sure enough, there he was, sitting cross-legged on the bridge that had been the home of so many fond memories for her.

"Hey Sakura-chan…" Naruto said, not opening his eyes from his meditative position in the middle of the painted planking.

"Naruto." Sakura nodded back, shoving her hands in her pockets.

"Sakura," Sakura looked up, surprised by his lack of honorific. "I don't think this is a genjutsu." Naruto's eyes were open, but they were serious and determined instead of their usual carefree state.

"Why not?" Sakura's voice was soft, but slightly shaking. The thought that they had been sent back…

"I can sense the nature chakra of the trees, and the birds and the gnats and everything!" Naruto exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "You can't just fake nature chakra. I can even feel the life energy of the mosquitoes flying around your head."

"They could be deluding your senses." Sakura pointed out, her brow creased.

"You can't." Naruto said, unfolding his legs and getting to his feet. "A sage is tied directly to nature; it's a bond that can't be faked."

"So you're like a hippie now." Sakura deadpanned, a sweatdrop working its way down her temple. "A crazy, super-powered, demon-holding tree hugger."

Naruto chuckled, blushing as he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "I guess."

"If this isn't a genjutsu…" Sakura mused, leaning against the handrail of the bridge. "Could we still use our summons?" Would they remember us?

"Let's do it!" Naruto cheered, already flashing through the short sequence of hand seals, Sakura close behind. "Kuchiose no Jutsu!" Both of their hands slammed simultaneously, small black kanji streaming out from their outstretched hands.

A small poof of smoke appeared and before both ninja, two small summons appeared.

"Hey Boss!"

"Sakura-sama."

Both Naruto and Sakura grinned in relief at the sight of their respective toad and slug summons. Naruto had summoned one of his best summons/friends, Gamakichi, who was still as big as he had been when he had been fighting against Pein.

"Hello Ieyasu-kun." Sakura murmured to the small palm sized slug, pale white striped with red. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

The small slug was made to be a chakra sensor; its antennae were made to sense the subtle variance of chakra waves and disruptions. It was the perfect slug to tell her if this was a genjutsu or... something else.

"Sakura-sama," Ieyasu said, worry on his normally bland face. "Katsuyu-sama is worried for you. Your chakra went dead for two minutes before your bond was reaffirmed with the contract."

Dead…? Sakura wondered, mystified. "Ieyasu-kun, could you tell us if we are stuck in a genjutsu?"

The slug went silent for a second, antennae swiveling again. "N-no… Sakura-sama."

"No genjutsu?" Sakura paled, and across the small bridge, Naruto's face echoed her own. Obviously, Gamakichi's response was just as worrying as her own.

"Katsuyu-sam sensed the bijuu's chakra, and how your life force flickered." Ieyasu began slowly, as if piecing together a particularly complex puzzle. "And now, you being here of all places…"

"Ieyasu…" Sakura said evenly, crushing the growing annoyance on her summons evasiveness. "Where is here?"

"You know of the four realms, correct?" Ieyasu asked. "The human realm, the summons realm, the divine realm, and the demon realm are the four main separate dimensions of reality. There are sub-dimensions, created by seals and kinjutsu of course, but they are temporary in comparison to the great four. In your case…" Ieyasu hesitated.

"What is it?" Sakura asked impatiently.

"The concentration of eight beings of near infinite power in one place, compressed into one container then released…was enough to tear you away from that reality. You were technically dead until your souls were attracted back to the human realm. You just didn't exactly make it back the correct point in the timeline. At least, that is what Katsuyu-sama and the Great Toad Sage agrees upon."

"What about the timeline!" Sakura moaned, clutching at the sides of her head in anguish. "What if we accidently make it so we are never born, or our friends's parents die or-"

"Sakura-sama." Ieyasu interrupted firmly, slithering up Sakura's arm to her shoulder. "Time is regulated by Kami herself. She knows which events need to happen and which are meant to be averted. Naruto's birth is set in stone, he is the instrument of which she advocates change. The Rookie 9 as they are called, are a force of Kami in the world, a force to restore balance. This much, at least has been revealed to the Toad Sage. " Ieyasu paused slightly, frowning to remember the rest of his message. "When you are born, your soul will flow from this body, to your natural one. As your true body grows in the womb, your current body will weaken, until, at the time of your birth, your soul slips into the newborn."

"T-that's a lot to take in." Sakura said weakly, sliding to the ground as her legs gave out.

"It may be a reassurance to you," Ieyasu said hesitantly. "That you can change what you want, teach what you want to who you want and do what you want. Everything will come out for the best, in Kami's eyes." With a slight bow of the head, Ieyasu disappeared in a puff of smoke, echoing the sound of Gamakichi's own dismissal.

Trembling slightly, Sakura drew her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees. Breath Sakura…

Sakura heard the soft tap of Naruto's zori on the bridge before she heard him slump to the ground beside her.

"So…" Naruto sighed, his mind spinning from the information he had received from Gamakichi. "We're… in the past…"

"We could save them." Sakura mumbled through numb lips, shock causing her to sit bolt upright. "We could save Nawaki, Dan-"

"My mother!" Naruto jumped up, pumping his fist into the air with an exuberant whoop. "I can save my mom!" *

Sakura grinned, allowing herself to get caught up in Naruto's infectious enthusiasm.

"Heh." Naruto rubbed under his nose with his forefinger, a habit he seemed to have picked up from his own sensei. "Haruno and Uzumaki, taking the world by storm!"


	3. Halfway Homeless

The Sandaime Hokage sighed as he slouched back into his wooden throne, chewing on his wooden pipe. The early morning rays of the sun shone against the cement walls of the arena, bathing them in yellow sunlight. Below him, the dusty sands of the Chuunin Arena stretched out below his dark gaze. He took in the nearly empty seats and the small line of jounin hopefuls that lounged against the high stone walls of main fighting ground and absently puffed a smoke ring, frowning intensly.

This year's exams had been cancelled because of the declaration of the Second Great Shinobi War earlier in the year but the great stadium still had its uses. After all, even if the Chuunin Exam was cancelled, the jounin exam certainly couldn't. While genin could be promoted to chuunin in the field, the title of jounin could only be given by the Hokage and the village needed skilled ninja desperately if it wanted to stay afloat in the four-way war that was brewing between Suna, Ame, Kumo and Konohagakure.

Looks like slim pickings this year… the Sandaime grumbled.

Most of the ninja were nondescript and rather bland, in the Sandaime's opinion. Eighteen of the twenty participants were dressed in forest greens and browns along with the traditional chuunin flak jacket and blue attire.

However… Sarutobi's eyebrow rose as he blinked at the two shinobi at the end of the line, two brightly colored sore thumbs amongst the rest of the competitors.

"ANBU Inago." Sarutobi turned to the ANBU operative that stood at his side silently. Antennae like green stripes were painted onto the white bone mask, alluding to his codename, grasshopper. "Those are the homeless-nin, correct?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama." The ANBU murmured, his head tilted so his voice filtered through his mask. "Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura."

"What are the reports on them?" Sarutobi asked, eyebrows raised as he surveyed the eccentric shinobi.

They were certainly dressed like no shinobi he had ever seen before. Their hair colors were bright blond and pink, eye catching and startling. The kunoichi was wearing bright red, with a stylized circle embroidered on the back. A lavender skirt and skin tight spandex shorts along with calf high kunoichi boots finished the ensemble. A tantō was strapped sideways across her back, the black grip protruding from her left side, painting her as a competent kunoichi.

"Both are not affiliated with either Kumo, Ame, or the hostile Suna-nin." The ANBU said. "The kunoichi, Sakura Haruno, professed herself a medic-nin and also seems familiar with the inner-workings of village security, as she questioned Hatake-san's ability to sense her medic chakra and our interrogation techniques."

Sarutobi chuckled, puffing once more on his pipe. "Sounds like an interesting woman…" he mused, quirking an eyebrow at the kunoichi who happily chatted away with her companion.

"Both have large chakra reserves, but the kunoichi seems to have near perfect chakra control. The shinobi, Uzumaki, has two times the estimated chakra of the Shodai in his prime." The Sandaime sat back, his eyebrows furrowed. Hashirama-sensei had been filled to the brim with chakra, his body had crawled with power. And if this Uzumaki had twice that amount... "-he seems to be affiliated with the Gama summons. He boasted to the guards to have both the seal mastery and the title of Sage."

Sarutobi blinked, broken out of his reverie, and focused again on the blond. From what he could see, he was wearing an orange and black jumpsuit, a red cloak with black flames licking the edges. His bright blond hair, reaching about the nape of his neck, fluttered wildly in the wind.

"If they pass the test, they would make perfect front-line fighters." The ANBU said, finishing up his report. With a quick salute, Inago blurred out of existence and back to his post.

Frontliners eh? Sarutobi grinned in anticipation. The type of ninja that were sent to the front line were always interesting to watch in mock battles, especially homeless-nin. The shinobi that were bred from warfare, without a safe haven like a village to return to were often brutal when dealing with 'village' ninja, especially since those ninja always seemed to underestimate them because of their lack of affiliation…

Yes, the Sandaime thought as he leaned forward as the first few fights were called by the referee. This would certainly be interesting.

"This is boring." Naruto muttered, frowning as he stared out from his position in the stands, ironically standing in the very same place as he did his first chuunin exam, thirty years into the future.

"Well," Sakura drawled, leaning her elbows on the rail. "You've been fighting S-Class missing Akatsuki and super powered opponents your whole career. I suppose that would spoil normal fights."

"Define normal." Naruto muttered, absently scratching his cheek as he dispassionately watched the fighting pair in the arena battle it out. "'Cause I think even Konohamaru can do better than this."

"Konohamaru was listed in the bingo book at age sixteen Naruto." Sakura sighed. "He isn't exactly an example of the norm."

"Yeah, yeah…" Naruto grouched, his temper darkening the more he thought about the friends he'd have to wait to be born. The Sandaime wasn't even old yet, hell, Ero-sannin's (or was it Ero-chibi now?) stripes were barely an inch long!

"Oi, Naruto." Sakura punched Naruto lightly in the arm, jerking her head toward the arena. "You're up."

Naruto blinked and look down, grinning sheepishly as he heard to referee repeat his name in an exasperated voice. "Could Uzumaki Naruto and Yashiro Uchiha please come down to the arena!"

Naruto whooped in elation and vaulted over the railing, landing silently on the dirt, naturally falling into a crouch. As soon as he saw his opponant, Naruto visibly deflated. "Ah, man." Naruto mumbled, scratching his head. "Couldn't you at least choose someone challenging? The Sharingan is boring."

"P-pardon me?" Yashiro sputtered, his face quickly becoming red as his anger rose. "The Uchiha Clan-"

"Blah." Naruto interrupted, his mouth morphing from an excited grin to a flat drawl.

"Stop-"

"Blah."

"What are-"

"Blah. blah."

"Would you shut up-"

"Blah. Blah. Blah."

"Would both of you just shut the hell up?" The referee barked, a sweat drop working its way down his temple as he viewed the two bickering ninja. Did they not get that their potential advancement, or better yet, acceptance as a Konohagakure ninja depended on this battle?

Naruto scowled at the scruffy looking referee, his eyes flickering with annoyance. "Then start the goddamned match." It had been a week since his battle with Pein and their subsequent dumping into the past. He needed a punching bag, and he needed it now. Taunting could only go so far.

"Tch." The referee grunted, scratching his rough beard. "Troublesome."

Naruto twitched as he looked at the shinobi out of the corner of his eye. Could he be related to that lazy ass Shikamaru? They sure bitch just like one another.

"Hajime!"

The sudden shout surprised Naruto, and he was forced to jerk himself to the side, broken out of his reverie by the Uchiha's fist slamming into the ground where he had just stood. "You missed." Naruto remarked dryly, a slightly patronizing smile on his face.

"Y-you-" the Uchiha sputtered, his porcelain face turning red again. "Y-you dare-"

"I'm not going to kiss your ass just because you've got a pair of pinwheels stuck in your eyeballs." Naruto said flatly, nonchalantly forming the seal for kage bunshin. "Besides, even if you copied my techniques, it wouldn't matter." Naruto chuckled as he saw Yoshiro's Sharingan spinning as the Uchiha copied the handseals. "You don't have enough chakra to use any one of them."

"Your arrogance will betray you." Yoshiro retorted, copying the blond's hand seals perfectly."Nothing can escape the Sharingan."

"Really?" Naruto gave Yoshiro a sly grin before the area behind disappeared into white smoke. As the summons smoke cleared, Naruto was pleased to note that the smug look off of Yoshiro's face had been significantly removed.

After all, being faced with another fifty solid clones of your enemy had to be rather daunting.

That wasn't even including Naruto's regeneration factor and his huge well of demon chakra, as well as his expertise in senjutsu.

"T-that is nothing!" Yoshiro yelled, managing to pull himself together. After all, the Sandaime himself could only create fifteen of them and this…nobody had managed to eclipse that twofold. "Prepare yourself!"

Naruto blinked, all his clones rolling their eyes at the Uchiha's bluster, even as they scattered into the trees that lined one side of the arena.

"Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu!"

A ball of fire roared out of Yoshiro's mouth, incinerating all in its path as it roared toward the stationary Naruto. The fire flickered and roiled as it traveled through the air, hitting the shinobi and roaring as it fed on fuel and chakra.

"Victory!" Yoshiro crowed as the technique faded and only a charred piece of land remained of his enemy.

"You're really annoying."

Yoshiro froze, a shiver making its way down his back. "N-no way…" He jerkily turned his head, staring with freaked out eyes at the face of Naruto that was right next to his ear.

The blond chuckled, his breath puffing against Yoshiro's skin. "That was really pathetic, you know?"

Yoshiro's face contorted into a mix of humiliation and rage. "I'll show you-"

"Enough already." Naruto muttered, slamming a knee into Yoshiro's stomach, ignoring the spurt of blood that poured out of the Uchiha's mouth and flowed down his chin. Another kick sent the wannabe jounin skidding twenty feet away before rolling to a stop.

By the time Yoshiro managed to get back to his feet, clones were converging on him from all sides. Only his speed and the warning the Sharingan gave him kept him from being totally overwhelmed, especially when the clones had engineered traps all around his location.

In fact… Yoshiro's eyes widened as he cursed and tried to throw himself to the side.

"Fuuinjutsu: Kumokansei!" * Naruto, the real one, slammed his hands into the ground, bringing a seal array to life beneath Yoshiro's sandals. "Activate!"

"Shit!" Yoshiro growled as his feet remained stuck to the ground, fixed in the center of spider web of kanji that made up the sealing technique. Even as he struggled to pull his feet from the ground, he could feel tendrils of foreign chakra entwine around his chakra circulatory system in his legs, effectively rooting him to the ground.

"Heh." Naruto smirked, hands on his hips. "Like it? My own invention you see. I call it the Spiders Trap. The chakra imbibed in this array travels into your very chakra, hooking you to the ground. Unless you'd like to cut your own legs off, you're stuck." Naruto dismissed his clones with a wave. "It was easy to form the necessary lines from below you with a kage bunshin, and now…" Naruto's eyes gleamed. "You're all mine."

Yoshiro gritted his teeth, his two-tomoe'd crimson eyes narrowing as he focused on his opponent, a kunai clenched in his hand. I underestimated him…

"Fuinjutsu: Kumokansei Raikou!"* Naruto yelled, pressing his hands on a specific chain of kanji. "Activate!" The air cackled with static and Yoshiro had a second to brace himself before chakra, converted into electricity by the seal, rushed into his circulatory system. Electricity roared up his legs, severely burning the pathways in his legs and scorching the nerve endings in his calves.

With a scream, Yoshiro fell to his knees, twitching as the chakra caused his muscles to spasm and clench. Yoshiro's body succumbed to the pain, contorting as voltage danced along his body, taking control as the electricity ran its course.

Even as Naruto ended the technique, Yoshiro's calves still screamed in pain, the muscles twitching and jerking by themselves.

"Do you give up?" Naruto asked; his voice was grim as he prepared himself to activate the array again if necessary.

"Y-yes." Yoshiro moaned, his eyes fluttering closed as his mind shut down from the pain.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!" the Nara referee called, his impassive face betraying nothing as he awarded the victory to the orange clan ninja who had already reclaimed his seat on the railing next to his pink haired companion.

"Heh." Naruto boasted, grinning at the smirking Sakura. "What a lightweight."

Sakura huffed and rolled her eyes in amusement. "You haven't ever been on the receiving end of your own jutsu Naruto; you don't know how painful it is."

"Well you didn't seem to have a problem with it." Naruto retorted, recalling the first time he had used the second stage of his seal array on her in a spar. She had simply smashed her first into the ground, disrupting the lay lines that made up the seal and disrupted it before it had reduced her legs to jelly.

"Not everyone has such destructive jutsu." Sakura admonished, a worried frown eclipsing her amusement. "And you probably shouldn't have made him scream like that, it might have sent a negative message to the Hokage. After all, he was an Uchiha, and the Sandaime might not have taken to well to you, well, humiliating one of the greatest clan's in Konoha."

"Pffft." Naruto said, waving her concerns away. "The Second Shinobi World War is starting, he wouldn't have lasted a minute in the field. I was doing him a favor. After all, jounin are on the front lines, I think I might have prolonged his life by six months."

"I wonder if the Second War was any different than the Fourth…" Sakura mused, remembering the blood soaked days that she had spent as a field medic in the killing fields of Kusa, crushing Oto-nin as they attempted to attack Sunagakure.

The Fourth Secret Shinobi War had been barely three years long, but it had been one of the fiercest, with Suna and Konoha steadily advancing against Otogakure, Iwagakure, and Kirigakure, massacring the inferiorly trained enemy forces with superior numbers and skill. Considering the fact that this had begun at the same time that Akatsuki had been on the move…

If Sakura remembered correctly, the Second World War had been even bloodier, with all the villages fighting amongst themselves with no concrete alliances against any particular villages. And then there was the Third War…

"We have to survive two wars." Sakura said with a hollow voice, grief lacing her voice as the realization hit her like a dozen bricks. "We have to survive two wars and a demon attack before being reincarnated into our own bodies."

"Yeah." Naruto agreed, staring with glazed eyes at the pair of chuunin fighting in the arena. "Weird, isn't it?"

"More like impossible." Sakura mumbled, massaging her temples with tapered fingers. "How many times did you nearly bleed out before Kyuubi and I could close the wounds hmm?"

"…a lot." Naruto mumbled, blushing.

"Exactly." Sakura said firmly, leaning into Naruto's personal space with an earnest expression. "We have two wars to get through Naruto, you can't just go… gallivanting off like you did the last time, leaving me behind." Sakura's voice was tinted with bitterness. "Tsunade-shishou and Jiraiya-sama taught us styles that complement each other Naruto-baka." She said quietly. "Our techniques work around each other, yet you don't seem to realize that I'm not the little girl who chased after Sasuke anymore."

"Aa, Sakura-chan." Naruto murmured; eyes downcast. "I don't mean to-"

"I know you don't Naruto." Sakura sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. "But I'm an S-class ninja too you know."

Naruto blinked as Sakura's pink hair tickled his nose, the slight twang of the oil she used to lubricate her kunai and extremely faint scent of her 'unscented' shampoo filling his sensitive nose."Hey Sakura-chan-"

"Don't ruin the moment Naruto."

The sun was high in the sky by the time it was Sakura's turn to fight. As she hopped down into the arena, she took a second to survey her opponent, her green eyes taking in everything in a mere glance.

He was a muscle bound shinobi, his upper-body barely covered by a strained chuunin jacket, his shaven head shining in the midday light. He wore standard chuunin pants taped to his ankles leading into black shinobi sandals. His hitai-ate was strapped to his thigh, the polished metal gleaming. A large battle ax was strapped to his back, the head wicked sharp.

"The battle between Haruno Sakura and Uzuchi Kio will now commence." The referee looked to both participants for any signs of forfeiting before swinging his hand down. "Hajime!"

"Hey little girl." Kio snickered, his face amused and condescending as he took in his female opponent. "Aren't you a little too pretty to be playing at ninja?"

"Oh shit." Naruto mumbled, sneaking a worried look at his teammate shock still form. "He did not just say that."

"What… did you just say?" Sakura's voice was quiet, and her eyes were shadowed by bands that weren't held back by a headband. Quietly, she slipped on black gloved, her fingers flexing as she accustomed herself to the comfortable leather.

"You should probably just quit." Kio continued, completely unaware of his impending doom. "After all, a mere kunoichi- guckch!"

Kio choked as Sakura's hand contracted around his throat. Her fingers flickered with chakra as she struggled not to crush his windpipe. "Mere…kunoichi?"

"Glug." Kio gulped, his eyes bugging out before puffing into smoke, replacing himself with a log.

"Kawarimi." Sakura swore, whirling around.

"Not just a pretty face then." Kio gasped from his position in the tree tops. "Weak, but not worthless."

Rage clouded Sakura's mind and she crushed the log in her hands into splinters. "I'll show you weak." Sakura snarled, her aura flickering as her fist crushed the log into dust.

"Let's dance kunoichi." Kio sneered, his brawny arms flexing as he dragged his ax from its harness, the weapon whistling as it cut through the air.

There was a split-second lull before Sakura launched her attack, her fist glowing with green chakra as she cocked it back to deliver a face caving crunch to her opponent. Her eyes glinted dangerously as she descended, her body expertly angled to deliver the most damage.

"Not so fast." Kio barked, swinging his axe into a blur, intent on cutting Sakura in half. "I'll cut you to pieces!" Warmth splattered Kio's face as his blade found its mark, and he closed his eyes in triumph. "Keh." He knew without looking that the kunoichi's corpse would be lying in two halves on the field, leaking intestine and bodily fluids.

"Shannaro!"

"Wha-!" Kio gasped, whirling around, only for a gloved fist to lodge itself into his cheek, sending him flying through an oak tree and out into the open commons of the arena.

"Don't underestimate me." Sakura growled, cracking her knuckles menacingly as she strode out toward the spread-eagled form of her the sexist shinobi.

"H-how…?" Kio sputtered, using the haft of his ax to lever his body to a standing positions, moving his jaw gingerly. He was pretty sure his cheekbone was fractured and he could taste blood pooling in his mouth.

"I'm a medical-nin you moron." Sakura said acerbically. "It's not hard to substitute myself with a fake corpse."

"That wasn't a fake!" Kio bit back, spitting a gobule of blood onto the packed dirt. "I felt bones and the blood-"

"-was an anatomically correct substitute body I made yesterday genius." Sakura rolled her eyes, even as Kio seemed to get his bluster back.

"A lucky shot, that's all. Bet'cha won't get another." He taunted, levering his axe into a defensive stance across his body.

Sakura's eyes narrowed as she readjusted her gloves, letting them snap back into place with a satisfying twang. "Let's dance." And with those ominous words, Sakura burst into smoke.

"Shiiiiiiit!" Kio mumbled as the bunshin dispelled, revealing an empty arena. "Shit. Shit. Think Kio, think! She's not behind, she's not in front she's not above…she's below!" Cursing, Kio threw his bodyweight backwards, his eyes crossing as Sakura's fist burst from the ground, centimeters from his nose.

"You missed me bitch!" Kio shouted, attempting to hack her in half from shoulder to hip. It was only with the help of reflexes honed by three years avoiding Tsunade-shishō's chakra lacked punches that let her whip out her tantō to block the heavy blade, her chakra enhanced strength allowing her to keep off the muscle man with only one arm.

Kio grunted as his beady eyes quickly examined his options. He was at a disadvantage, using two hands to use his heavy axe, while Haruno had an empty hand to attack with. As if to echo his thoughts, Sakura's hand darter forward, a black blur. Kio hastily jammed the butt of his ax into Sakura's midsection, sending her skidding backwards, almost doubled over.

"Missed you? I don't think so." Sakura grinned, even as blood from internal hemorrhaging flowed down her chin. Bringing her hands into the tiger seal, she gave jerked her head towards his chest.

Looking down, Kio bit back a gulp. Taped to his ax shaft was a combustion tag, calibrated to activate with a simple close range pulse of chakra. "Shit!" he growled as he threw his weapon away with all his might, even as it burst into flame, sending the ax spinning like a fiery Catherine Wheel into the arena wall.

Then Sakura was on him, punching and kicking like a madwoman. Her strikes only avoided by a bare hairs breadth before another was launched at the axe-man's face.

"Kya! Sakrua shouted as she cocked back and rocketed her fist forward, barely clipping Kio on the temple, sending him spinning away to the side. Her fist continued onward, plunging into the ground, completely decimating the ground was her chakra released in a controlled blast, reducing the dirt to a ten foot wide crater.

"Holy-" Kio gasped as he managed to get his feet under him and lurch to the side, barely escaping being disemboweled by chakra. As the dust settled, Kio wildly searched the empty –again- arena, fear of this kunoichi curling in his stomach.

"Tsūtenkyaku!"* Kio's head jerked upwards, his face crumpling as Sakura's shadow grew, her heel descending to deliver a punishing axe-kick, her heel glittering with deadly green chakra

"Inari-sama," Kio muttered, sending a brief prayer to the kitsune god. "Ferry my soul safely to Kami-sama when I die."

And then he knew nothing but pain.

Sakura snorted as she shook blood off of her heel, absently crouching by Kio's prone body to assess the damage her powerful hit had wreaked on his body.

"You're so lucky." Sakura muttered. "I managed to hit your shoulder instead of caving in your skull."

"Shōsen no Jutsu." * Sakura intoned, running her healing hands over Kio's collarbone, which had been reduced to powder by her hit.

"What're you doin'?" Kio asked wearily, half unconscious from the pain.

"Making sure you can use your arm again." Sakura said crossly. "So don't test me." Briskly, Sakura tapped his forehead, grabbing his already groggy conscious and activating a chakra based sleep jutsu. "Sleep."

"'Kay." Kio muttered, his rough face smoothing into calm as he dropped off

"The winner is Haruno Sakura…?"

Sakura glanced up, surprised, her features morphing into an expression of sheepishness. All of the shinobi, minus Naruto, were staring at her in wonder, confusion, or shock.

"What?" she asked defensively. "I wasn't about to just leave him there and have him be crippled for life."

As Sakura left the arena and Kio was towed out on a stretcher by paramedics, she swore she heard the referee snort an amused 'medic-nin' under his breath when she passed.


	4. Dull Gleam

The Sandaime Hokage felt his chest swell with pride as he surveyed the shinobi lined up in his office, all at perfect attention, clothes immaculate and un-scuffed. A row of gleaming hitae-ate, the leaf emblem shining from a celebratory cleaning winked back at him from under his wide crimson hat.

It always made him stand up a little straighter, stooped as his back was from the heavy weight of a Hokage's robes and responsibility, to see capable ninja grow from whiny Acadamy brats to talented jounin. He loved to live vicariously through his subordinates, to feel proud of them like any father would of his children and to nurture to their strengths and help strengthen their weaknesses.

It was only one of the few perks of the job, Sarutobi was coming to realize with a mental frown. Why was he Hokage again?

Oh yeah. The chicks. Like that had ever worked for Tobirama-sensei.

Sarutobi grinned, quickly hiding his amusement under a battle scarred hand. Luckily, his break of decorum was covered by his teammate Koharu, who was reading the ninja code back to the utterly bored congregation of shinobi.

Especially the orange wearing blonde one, situated farthest from the mindless droning of his female cell member.

Uzumaki Naruto.

Sarutobi felt a small twinge of pride for the blond, as well as his pink haired companion, who was standing at attention next to him. There was something about Naruto… he was so familiar, so like himself when he was his usual policy to refuse missing-nin to join the village unless in an emergency, he had allowed the young, powerful duo to join Konoha's forces.

And so far, that was proving to be a wise decision. If anything, Naruto's utter destruction of one of the Uchiha's up and coming jonin hadn't instilled a fear of the young shinobi but rather a healthy respect and a heartfelt thanks to whatever kami out there had kept them from joining Konoha's many enemies.

Somehow, the thought of a Naruto with an Iwa hitae-ate just didn't sit right with the Hokage for some reason.

Weird.

"-and now the Hokage would like to address you." Koharu finished, with her usual theatrical flair.

The Sandaime grinned, his hands flexing as he looked each examinee in the eye. "You've all proven your worth." His baritone voice resonated pleasantly around the room, filling the air with his powerful words. "Shinobi have bled, friends have died, and you have sworn to give your lives for the villagers of Konohagakure."

"However," the Hokage murmured. "I don't think you have quite grasped the concept, the sheer enormity of the responsibilities of the rank of jonin." As he turned his back on his audience, he was pleased to see that the blond actually seemed to be paying attention to him instead of tuning him out. "You know that to be a shinobi you have to lay your lives down on the line every day, but, who do you sacrifice for?" Sarutobi's eyes glinted. "The shinobi code teaches you to stunt emotion, and to treat yourselves as tools. Do some of you believe this?"

The mumbled agreement of a few of the older shinobi met his ears and the Sandaime wheeled himself around, his eyes piercing his soldiers. "Bullshit!"

"You cannot fight for a village as a whole, and not include the individuals in it, just as you cannot protect the individuals in a village without protecting the entirety of the village itself."

The Hokage known as the God of Shinobi's voice was hard as he turned from his ninja and stared out over his village, the brightly painted buildings gleaming in the light from the summer sun.

"You'll be entrusted with the genin, the future, of this village, and expected to guide them to greatness, and protect them until they know how to protect themselves. You'll be one of the elite of this village, expected to lead genin, chuunn, and tokubetsu jounin to their deaths. If you can't handle that, I must ask that you leave."

Sandaime's practiced eyes caught the slight shifting of feet and flashes of fear, all usual reactions. But… out of the corner of his eye, he caught Naruto's stance, filled with defiance and a distinct lack of fear. The Haruno kunoichi was the same, her body language radiating courage and… protectiveness?

Sarutobi smirked, hiding a perverted grin. Seemed like the Haruno wasn't as unaffected by her partner as she pretended to be.

"But, for now…" The Hokage adjusted his conical hat, shadowing his eyes. "I congratulate you. Dismissed."

As the newly promoted nin filed out, Sarutobi turned his attention to the two newcomers who were making their way out with their new comrades. "You two stay."

"Heh, hello Ojiji-sama…" Naruto grinned, scratching the back of his head.

Sarutobi blinked, surprised. No one had referred to him in such an informal way since Tobirama and Hashirama-sensei had died. He wasn't even that old…

"Fool!" Koharu hissed, her eyes flashing in indignation at such a breach of protocol. "How dare you refer to the Hokage in such a disrespectful manner-"

"Bah." Naruto waved his hand dismissively, enraging the councilor even more. "Wasn't talking to you."

The leader of Konoha had to smother a laugh at the shade of red his former teammate's face was taking.

"Naruto." Naruto froze, a shiver working its way up his back. "What have I told you about disrespecting the Hokage?"

"Not to do it?" Naruto squeaked back.

"Exactly." Sakura's fist came down hard, knocking him breathless to the ground. "Apologize."

"Er, sorry Ojiji-sama." Naruto mumbled, adjusting his jacket as he hoisted himself off the floor.

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama." Sakura said, a sweat drop forming making its way down her temple. "I think he might have been dropped on his head at birth."

"Hmph." Sarutobi snorted, lighting up his pipe with a flick of a match. "Its fine Haruno-san, it's rather… refreshing."

"Hokage-sama!" Koharu hissed, her dark eyes flicking to the blond shinobi in disdain. "Surely you won't let him get away with-!"

"It's fine, Koharu." The Sandaime chuckled, dark smoke streaming out of his nose in a contented huff. "You're dismissed."

As soon as the door clicked shut, Naruto let out with a loud, wet raspberry at the councilor's back, his face crinkled in distaste.

"Naruto." Sakura scolded, abstaining from hitting him this once. Honestly, she wasn't that fond of Koharu either, from this time or the Godaime's reign.

"Ah, sorry Sakura-chan." Naruto grinned, giving the exasperated kunoichi a thumbs up.

"Ahem." Sarutobi cleared his throat, bringing both of his shinobi's attention (complete with sheepish expressions) back to him. Settling behind his desk, Sarutobi ruffled through a few sheaves of kanji filled paper. "Your paperwork is all in order, and you can pick it up on the way out."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." Sakura said, smiling gratefully at the older man.

"And of course…" Sarutobi, smiling, pulled out two gleaming hitae-ate, the black cloth impeccably clean with nary a scratch or scuff, unlike their former headwear, which was practically enshrined under a loose floorboard in their closet. "Cheers to the newest Konohagakure shinobi. Congratulations."

"Heh." Naruto grinned, tying the headband snugly onto his head, welcoming the familiarity of the article. It truly had been a weird week without it, discounting the whole going back in time thing.

"Of course, there are some things I need to discuss with your two." The Sandaime almost looked regretful. "First of all is your name, Naruto-san."

"Er… what about it?" Naruto asked, eyes narrowed in suspicious, but confused all the same.

Sarutobi shifted slightly. Sometimes he hated this part of his job. The politics certainly didn't help much…

"The Uzumaki Clan is a well respected clan from Uzu no Kuni and one of Konoha's staunchest allies. The elders believe that, you being a foreigner and not formally recognized by the clan, that it would cause problems between us if you carried their name, related or not."

"So, you want me to change my name?" Naruto asked, slightly bewildered. And hurt, actually. He was an Uzumaki, his mother just… wasn't born yet.

"It's all political." Sakura murmured; her brow creased as she tried to think up a good excuse for the blond to keep his name. After all, it was a large part of his personality.

"It's my name." Naruto repeated his voice pained and low.

"What was your father's name Naruto?" Sakura asked firmly, ignoring the look of betrayal Naruto threw her.

"Namikaze." The blond said, sullen.

"Hokage-sama, meet Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze, jounin of Konohagakure." Sakura said proudly. "This way it's still Naruto's name, but he doesn't have politicians breathing on his neck.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." Naruto muttered under his breath. "It's only my name."

"I'm glad that's settled." The Hokage continued. "But I'm afraid you are both not, ahem, entirely correct."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked, wary at the sly look on the Hokage's face.

"You aren't, in fact, jounin, but rather, ah, chuunin."

There were three seconds of silence… until-

"WHAT!"

"Heh heh." The Sandaime grinned, his voice amused at the twin glares of disbelief. "You really didn't think you were going to be promoted right away, did you?"

"Why not!" Naruto barked out, his eyes flashing as he fisted his hands into the fabric of his trench coat pocket. "We utterly destroyed the jounin candidates out there!"

"You have only been under surveillance by ANBU for 96 hours. You have the skill level, certainly, but not the security clearance for sensitive information you'd need." The Hokage said, leaning backwards in his comfy chair.

"Aw…" Naruto whined, his eyes scrunched up in an immature pout. "Oji-san…"

"Stop it Naruto." Sakura muttered, elbowing him sharply in the ribs. "I know you're not that baby-ish."

"Right." Naruto grinned, scratching his scalp absently. He forgot sometimes, to turn off his natural idiot behavior around his longtime teammate. He'd learned fighting the Akatsuki that if he acted like he had at age twelve, they'd underestimate him in no time, letting him get in that decisive blow that let him get the edge. It wasn't exactly a mask, or an act per say, because he could honestly be the socially obtuse sometimes, but it was more like another layer of defense in his moniker of being the Number One Surprising Ninja.

The problem was turning it off sometimes.

"Well then." The Hokage adjusted his hat against the slight draft from the vent overhead. "You're excused. Report at the missions desk at seven tomorrow for your first B-rank mission. You'll meet up with the rest of your four man chuunin combat team then."

"Combat already?" Sakura asked, surprised.

"Well m'dear." Sarutobi said gravely. "We are in a war now."

It was early the next morning when Naruto and Sakura managed to haul themselves out of bed and across the rooftops to the mission's office. Their eyes were still lidded with sleep and yawns made it out of their mouths, even as they managed to stumble through the doors.

"God, I didn't know time travel could make you feel this shitty." Naruto mumbled, straightening his hitae-ate.

"Probably because we haven't been able to sleep for more than an hour since we got here four days ago." Sakura griped back, leaning on him so she could walk and nap at the same time.

Though a pale pink flush made it up from his collar, Naruto was reasonably certain he'd managed to keep his embarrassment at being cuddled (of a sort) by Sakura-chan to a minimum.

After all, he had to be professional, right? Hadn't Sakura always complained about how much of a fool he acted sometimes? They had gotten a lot closer over the course of their missions against Akatsuki and their personal mission to regain Sasuke and now Naruto could easily say that Sakura knew him better than any persona alive, past or future.

Sasuke might have been able to relate to him on a purely emotional level, but had Sasuke ever bothered to pay attention to the little things that made him Naruto? Sakura knew that, though ramen would always be his favorite food, he liked homemade red bean soup almost as much because it was the first homemade meal anyone had ever bothered to make for him. She knew that one of his greatest wishes was to have fought the Third Hokage before he died and that gardening was one of his favorite hobbies.

He supposed, as her best-friend, he knew tons of stuff about her as well. Naruto hadn't been surprised that Tsunade's training had changed his teammate, but when they had been assigned on teams together even he noticed the subtle changes. She had been changed into a hard core pro-kunoichi ninja, not letting anything stand in the way of paving the way of woman on her dangerous career as a field medic. She valued courage above everything else (it was probably why they got on so well now) and her deepest fear was that Naruto and Sasuke were going to manage to kill each other, and leave her all alone. They were so close it made him physically ill to consider making everything weird by asking her out constantly like he had when he had been only a genin. After all, professing to love a grown woman was much different than when he was a pre-pubescent twelve year old.

Why would he want to jeopardize this with her?

Oh yeah. Naruto sweat dropped. He'd been hopelessly in love since he was twelve.

Sakura frowned as she looked up at the contemplative expression on Naruto's face, something that had become pretty characteristic since they had come back.

What did he frown about all day…? Sakura wondered, her brow furrowed as she attempted to read his emotions through his usually expressive eyes. They were shuttered today, no longer a bright cerulean as she had become used to.

"Is everything alright?" Sakura asked, narrowing her eyes. Naruto had this really bad habit that made him want to protect everyone, even at the cost of his own feelings.

"Huh?" Naruto looked up, his bewildered gaze meeting her own purposeful one. "Oh- no, I'm just tired I guess."

Sakura, after searching his face again and finding nothing, nodded and straightened, stretching her body with a yawn as she took her head off of her companion's shoulder. Naruto was sad to admit that the loss of contact made him a little melancholy.

Sighing, Naruto tore his attention away from that of his distracting friend, focusing instead on the entirely too familiar missions desk and the completely unfamiliar ninja that surrounded it.

"Damn." Naruto muttered, half to himself, half to Sakura. "I didn't realize how unique our jounin really were."

Indeed, these generic nin seemed like nothing in comparison to the ninja that could've taken down S-ranked criminals. These ninja, most of whom would die before Naruto would ever get the chance to know in his reincarnation were nothing like Kurenai, Gai, Kakashi, or Asuma, who had become the fathers and mothers in their lives. He supposed they were great people, but these faceless comrades were mere faces to the men and women who had been closer to the Rookie Nine and Team Gai then their own messed up families.

"Yup." Sakura agreed, her green eyes swiftly surveying the chatting jounin and the greenhorn genin that were nervously approaching the missions desk for the first time. "They were all batshit crazy though."

"Oh, definitely." Naruto agreed, not voicing any surprise or any words in defense of the group of eccentric jounin.

"Hey pinkie!" Sakura blinked, Naruto copying her movement, and turned to look in the direction of the shout.

It was the chibi Tsunade, complete with blonde hair and gold eyes, features Sakura had come to expect in a much older, much more familiar woman tempered by grief and laziness.

And a lot of cheap alcohol. Man, did that bring up memories.

Sakura swallowed as she allowed herself to look down at the smaller version of her teacher, her emotions tightly locked away in a way that only three years of pain of betrayal could teach.

"What?" he voice was short. She wasn't in the mood for bullshit.

Tsunade blinked at the older woman's sharp tone. "Er…"

"Don't worry about it." The blond shinobi grinned. "She's just pissed that she didn't get promoted to jounin."

"Am not." The pinkette muttered, leaning against the wall, her arms folded.

"Right." Naruto rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'm Uzu-er-Namikaze Naruto, and that grouch is Haruno Sakura."

"I can introduce myself you know." Sakura snapped, her eyes flashing. They couldn't form any attachments or who knew what would happen? Certainly their sensei had never mentioned anyone that looked like them, so they must not have been that close in the past. Sakura certainly didn't want to mess around playing with the time stream.

With her sensei around, alive and kicking, Sakura knew it would be almost impossible to get out once she got sucked in.

"Bah." Naruto waved her off. "Don't worry about her, she's just being bitchy." Ignoring the fuming Sakura, the blond leaned in conspiratorially, winking. "I bet she's PMSing."

"Baka!" Sakura snarled, lodging her fist into Naruto's cheek, giving it a vicious twist to give his body some spin as it crashed headfirst into the wall. "That's no way to talk to the only girl who would endure your appalling behavior for more than a minute!"

"Aa." Naruto groaned, cradling his head. "But you feel better don't ya'?"

"Yeah, yeah." Sakura ground out, tapping the sole of her boot on the floor in impatience. "What do you want?" she said with a softer tone, turning to the painful reminder of her shishou. Hell, it was her shishou.

"I want you to teach me." Tsunade said, her chin fixed stubbornly in the way that let Sakura know she was just going to keep on bugging her.

"Teach what?" Sakura asked, pretending to play dumb. Maybe she'd go away…?

"Medical-ninjutsu." Tsunade deadpanned. "No one has a full knowledge in this village, so I have to learn what I can from who I can."

"Sakura-chan can teach you!" Naruto interjected his face bright with mischief. "I saw her practically bring a man back from the dead once!"

"Naruto-" Sakura attempted to stop him, her cheeks red with embarrassment.

"And she can crush boulders with only chakra control!" Naruto continued, babbling like a fanboy. "She can summon slugs that can spit acid and can heal people instantly! Sakura-chan is so cool-"

"Naruto!" Sakura had caught sight of the predatory glint in Tsunade's eyes. Tsunade wanted her as a sensei, but Sakura knew that she shouldn't get involved with someone who would directly impact her life so much.

"Relax, Sakura-chan." Naruto said, rolling his eyes. "Everything'll be fine, geez. Remember what Ieyasu-kun said?"

Sakura blinked.

"… you can change what you want, teach what you want to who you want and do what you want. Everything will come out for the best, in Kami's eyes."

Was it just her imagination, or had the slug summon stressed that word?

"I'll teach you." Sakura heard herself say. "On one condition."

"What?" Tsunade asked, annoyed but ready to start learning.

"One; I am Sakura or Haruno-shishou and unless we are on a mission, you'll address me so." Heh, there. A little revenge for all those time's Tsunade had relished in Sakura calling her 'master'. "And secondly-"

"Theres more!" Tsunade bit out, only to receive an expectant look from Sakura. "Is there more Haruno-shishou?"

"Secondly…" Sakura blinked and tapped her finger against her chin, staring up at the sky. "After I die, you have to take more than one apprentice."

"W-what?" she heard Naruto stutter, but her eyes were intent on Tsunade.

"This isn't a 'learn everything from me until the going gets rough and then leave' situation, Tsuande-deshi. (1) This is until I am certain that you could go out into the world, heal a man bleeding to death, and come home with chakra left to spare."

Sakura sighed and tilted her head back, her eyes drifting shut. "You should probably go take some time to think on it."

"Er- Sakura-chan?"

"Yes Naruto?"

"Ero-c-chibi is coming this way, Sakura-chan. I think they are our chuunin team!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) -deshi: translated to 'student'


	5. Infamous Days

Naruto stared, furiously blinking as he tried to keep his tears at bay. To see him here… now…

"What's the mission?" Jiraiya grinned, his white hair in disarray, either ignoring or not acknowledging the awkward atmosphere that had descended at his arrival.

Sakura's eyes flashed to Naruto's anguished face for a millisecond, his pain displayed on his face before iron bars of control slammed down onto his emotions, his eyes finding her own worried pair. His chin jerked negatively, his signal to let it go. Obviously, he didn't want it to be a big deal. Well, that wouldn't do.

"B-rank." Sakura said, carefully maneuvering herself so that Jiraiya's view of Naruto was impeded. "Why don't you two go pick up the scroll from the missions desk? You two are the senior chuunin on this mission, after all."

"We are?" Tsunade and Jiraiya said together, before glancing at it each other and blushing in surprise.

"We've been chuunin for about twenty-four hours." Sakura said. "You're in charge."

"Uh…right." Jiraiya said, rubbing his nose with his forefinger. "C'mon Tsunade-hime."

As soon as they were gone, Sakura turned to Naruto with a fierce expression on her face. "Pull yourself together Naruto!" She grabbed him by the lapels from his orange jacket, dragging him down to her height. "This is no time to get emotional!"

"Get emotional!" Naruto hissed back. "That was my sensei. The man who died against Pein. Alive."

"And eleven." Sakura shot back, giving him a little shake. "He's eleven. He's not the man who trained the Yondaime and he's certainly not your godfather." Yet.

Naruto let out a shaky breath, and Sakura took this as he cue to let him go. "It won't be easy, Naruto, and I'm not asking you to be his best friend, but I need you to play it cool okay?" she look up at him with pleading green eyes. "For me?"

Naruto bit back a curse. Even though she was acting innocent, he knew she would use anything in her arsenal to keep him from doing something stupid. Including those damned eyes of hers.

"…fine."

The grin that split her face blinded him for a second, and he blinked as he realized that she was hugging him around the middle, her face buried in his neck.

"Uh…" His brain short circuited and by the time he thought to hug her back, she had already backed off, turning her attention toward the two returning shinobi.

'I think I'd do anything,' Naruto thought, smiling slightly as she watched Sakura read the thick scroll that Jiraiya had deposited in her hands with a leer . 'for another one of those hugs.'

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"What's our mission again?" Naruto asked Sakura as they sped side by side through the thick foliage of Konoha's northern forest.

"I told you a million times!" Sakura yelled, ducking a branch and speeding forward. "We've got a two-month posting to one of the northern border posts. We're to repel any forward advances by any shinobi not affiliated with us, which is pretty much everybody, and to hold the line until reinforcements back us up if we're attacked."

"That sounds so boring!" Naruto whined, twisting past a particularly whippy branch, his voice carrying back to Jiraiya and Tsunade who were gasping as they tried to keep up with the faster ninja.

"How…the hell," Jiraiya gulped to his teammate. "are they able...to…keep going?"

"How…the hell…should I know?" Tsunade retorted, though the remark lost most of its spark as she had to force it out with her exhausted lungs.

"C'mon slowpokes!" Naruto crowed back at them, actually running backwards over the tree branches to face them fully.

"He hasn't even broken a sweat!" Jiraiya moaned, his lungs burning and his legs dragging as he struggled to leap from branch to branch.

"Neither has Sakura-san." Tsunade muttered under her breath.

It seemed that the two chuunin were able to sense their comrade's fatigue, because Naruto soon called a halt, directing them to a secluded clearing in the thick Konoha forest that kept them sheltered and offered refreshment from a crystal clear stream.

Taking a seat on an exposed tree root, Sakura leaned back against the trunk of the beech tree and inhaled, simply enjoying the crisp air and the cool breeze that cooled her face.

It had been a long time since she had been able to just… sit back and enjoy the show. With all the drama about Akatsuki… in reality, she hadn't been able to fully relax since Gaara was targeted. It had been a string of fierce battles, one after another for her and Naruto, with occasional Team Hawk appearances to distract them from the next S-ranked ninja that popped out of the woodwork.

Pein had been that last, and now they had to do it all over again, and then some.

"Oi, Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled, waving at her from the grassy bank of the brook. His smile sparkled and his hair was tossed around his face by a rising wind. He looked almost… handsome.

Sakura blinked, and the moment was gone. Plain ol' Naruto was back, in all his goofy, best friendliness.

What was that about? Sakura wondered before answering Naruto's shouted question. "What!"

"How much longer until we get to the border!"

"Another six hours!" Sakura yelled back. "Well, we could make it in three, but not at a speed that the kids could keep."

"Hey!" Jiraiya yelped indignantly. "Who you callin' a kid?"

"When you finish your first solo A-rank Jiraiya-chan, I'll call you an adult!" Sakura grinned, pushing herself up to trot over to the rest of the group.

"Hmph." Jiraiya huffed, taking a swig from his canteen in lieu of anything else to say.

"Ready to go?" Naruto asked, clapping his hands together.

In answer, a score of shuriken whizzed out of the tree tops, causing the squad to scatter.

"You're not going anywhere." An eight-man squad of shinobi stepped out of the dappled shadows, their re-breathers and tan full body suits proclaiming them Rain shinobi before the dull gleam of their forehead protectors gave them away.

The Konoha shinobi immediately fell into defensive positions. Sakura's hands glowed with green chakra that sharpened into deadly chakra scalpel and Naruto's posture fell into that of his personal taijutsu stance, loose and relaxed.

"You're trespassing in Konoha territory." Tsunade said her voice stiff and, to her credit, it didn't tremble. In her hand a surgical kunai was clenched, the hooked end gleaming in the noon light.

"We'll be sure to file with your Hokage." The leader sneered, provoking a jeering laugh from his men. "After sending you to him in a body bag of course."

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!" Naruto yelled, and five solid clones popped into existence, throwing themselves at the Rain ninja with battle cries that shook the clearing.

As soon as the sounds of clashing kunai filled the air, Naruto turned to the rest of the team and started snapping orders. "Tsunade, take the one on the left; Jiraiya, take the one on the right; Sakura-"

"On it!" Sakura called as she charged forward, her fist charged bright with chakra, ready to engage what looked to be one of the two jounin commanders.

The enemy raised his arms almost in a lazy defense, a smug smirk on his face as he braced for what he was sure would be a wimpy little kunoichi punch. Female ninja were only good for one thing-

Sakura smashed through the Ame-nin's defense, snapping his forearm in two and following through to crush his ribcage. Blood spurted from his mouth as his lungs were punctured, spattering Sakura's face and neck with red.

"Bitch…" the jounin gurgled as he struggled to breathe on the ground, choking on his own blood as it filled up his throat.

"Don't underestimate me." Sakura sneered, before turning on her heel and dashing off to help Tsunade against her opponent.

The jounin groped for his exploding tags, grasping for the ignition tag. If he could only set them off before she got too far away… his fingers tugged the pouch open, only to find it empty.

'Don't underestimate me.'

"Bitch." He growled for the last time.

'Four down, four to go.' Naruto thought as he flipped away from a volley of shuriken, cocking his head slightly as his kage bunshin dissipated. Jiraiya and Tsunade were still struggling against their opponents and Sakura had finished off her own to go assist them.

Kage bunshin were keeping the extra busy, respawning as fast as they were killed.

"I guess that leaves you, right?" Naruto asked, pointing at the rather weedy looking ninja in front of him.

"Just shut up and fight leaf-spawn!" the Ame-nin crowed, lunging forward in a perfectly executed spinning kick towards Naruto's face.

"Taijutsu type, huh?" Naruto chuckled, catching the foot on his forearm. With a quick twist, he ducked underneath the follow up kick, leaving the Ame-nin in mid-air above his head.

Still crouched down, Naruto brought his leg around for a brutal kick to Ame-nin's spine. The nin flew about twenty feet before hitting the ground hard and rolling to a stop in a clump of weeds. A snap and a choked scream indicated a broken leg at the least.

Slinging an exploding note attached to a kunai toward the downed figure, Naruto continued on to lock kunai with another jounin, ignoring the explosion and spatter of blood on the back of his orange jacket as his previous enemy disintegrated into a shower of gore.

"Shinji!" the shinobi's cry of anguish woke a slimmer of Naruto's pity for the young jounin, but he quickly banished it as the enraged Ame-nin turned to him.

"You…" the Ame-nin was quiet, standing with his eyes down and his kunai held limply in his hand. "You…killed Shinji…"

"It's my duty." Naruto said quietly, relaxing his arms into a defensive stance. "Shinji would have killed me."

"H-he…he was my best friend." Tears ran in rivers down the jounin's face. "W-we were going to plan his wedding after this last mission."

Naruto gulped, fighting down bile and remorse and guilt. He could deal with this after the fighting was done.

The foreign shinobi's head snapped up, fixing Naruto with a wild look. "I'll kill you for that!" he screamed, spraying spittle and rolling his eyes like a mad dog.

Naruto's eyes widened in alarm and ducked under a wild out of control swing that would have taken off his head. His brown tightened in concentration as skipped back, getting a little space between himself and the beserking enemy.

A brief handseal later and two clones popped into existence beside him.

It was time to get serious.

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Jiraiya gasped for breath, one eye shut against the pain radiating from his leg. "Damn." He groaned, shifting painfully.

His opponent, a ninjato wielding jounin, grinned as he flicked Jiraiya's blood off of his blade. "Does it hurt kid?"

"A little." Jiraiya lied. "But I've seen Academy students do better than that."

The jounin didn't lose his grin, but Jiraiya noticed his eyes got a little harder and his grip on his sword tightened.

"I know this little kid-Nawaki- who can stab better than that." Jiraiya laughed outright. "He's five."

"Hmph." The jounin snorted, readying his sword for a killing blow. "My swordsmanship is impeccable. Your opinion means nothing."

"Whatever." Jiraiya said, clasping his hands behind his back and finishing the last handseal to his new jutsu. "If it helps you sleep at night…"

"Shut up!" His opponent barked, a vein throbbing in his temple as he launched himself at Jiraiya's unmoving form.

"Hari Jizō!" Jiraiya yelled, and he felt his hair lengthen and, quicker than the ninja's blade could strike, wrapped around him in a protective cocoon of hair sharper than needles.

The pained scream of the jounin and the sound of the ninja impacting the spikes was Jiraiya's only indication of his opponents fate. It was all he could do to keep from vomiting after he had finished his technique and all the blood dripped from his hairline into his eyes.

000000000000000000

The last living Ame-ninja looked nervously around as his compatriots were killed off one by one, himself safely ensconced in a stealth genjutsu with the blonde and pink haired kunoichi double-teaming one of his mud clones.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit." He muttered, his panicked eyes looking desperately for an escape route. He didn't plan to die, not now, not ever.

After sending out one more wave of clones to cover his retreat, the ninja turned his back on the last shriek of his comrades and sprinted back toward the border of Ame to report this fearsome new team that had taken apart one of Hanzō's top jounin squads.


	6. Concrete

The four man chuunin squad arrived at the border outpost the next day, dirty, bloody and in complete disarray. With numerous cuts, scrapes and bloodied knuckles, they staggered into the small clearing.

"I want a shower." Jiraiya muttered, picking at his blood encrusted hair.

He'd never had to use his Hari Jizō attack on an actual person before- Jiraiya hadn't counted on the blood that would get into his hair from the technique. He frowned, already making calculations to correct that incomplete aspect of the jutsu. It wouldn't do to have blood drip in his eyes in a fight after all…

Naruto sighed as he landed in the clearing, one eye closed as he tried to ignore the unsettling feeling of his wounds pulling together by themselves, courtesy of the youkai the Kyuubi had left behind. His eye quickly slid from one end of the clearing to the other, visually checking out the area.

"Sakura?" Naruto didn't hear her sandals (she always was better at stealth than he was), but he could feel the air eddying and swirling around her form, letting him know she was right behind him.

"On it." Sakura's eyes narrowed, before she sent out a quick burst of tightly controlled chakra. She waited briefly-less than a second- before she sent out another.

"What's she doing?" Tsunade asked, twitching slightly with each wave of chakra sent out. Her hypersensitivity to chakra was part of the reason she was assigned to Orochimaru and Jiraiya- they couldn't sense chakra to save their lives.

"Chakralocation." Naruto said quietly, still tensed and ready. "She's sending out a thin shell of chakra that breaks whenever it interacts with foreign chakra. Since she's not attuned to the chakra that naturally comes off of animals and plants, it only fractures when it hits higher levels, like in a human being."

"Nice." Jiraiya commented, for once without his customary leer.

"Nothing." Sakura muttered her voice nearly inaudible. "Nothing living anyway."

"Do'you think those Ame guys attacked the border post?" Naruto murmured back, quirking an eyebrow.

"My jutsu can't penetrate concrete." Sakura replied, her hand drifting to her kunai pouch. "They could be in the bunker."

Naruto blinked. "Wha-?"

Sakura sighed and grabbed Naruto's chin, directing it in the proper direction.

"Oh…" Naruto grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. On the other side of the clearing was a half-buried bunker, the dull gray material half covered by camouflage net and vines specifically grown to keep the place secure from enemy eyes. "Right."

"Baka." Sakura sighed, before turning back to Tsunade and Jiraiya. "Anyway- orders?"

Jiraiya blinked. "Oh yeah, we're in charge aren't we?" He looked kind of green at the thought. He'd never led a mission before- it'd always been Sarutobi-sensei or Orochimaru- and found he didn't envy them as much as he thought he would.

At least as a follower he didn't have to be responsible for deaths that could occur under his command.

"Um… any ideas?" Jiraiya shared a look with Tsunade, who looked just as uneasy, and turned to the two older shinobi.

Naruto gave them an encouraging nod before shrugging. "I've never fought in such tight spaces."

Sakura frowned, her fist propping her chin up as she tried to think. "I had to do a few missions when you were gone with Ji-uh- Ero-sennin." She grimaced- they'd need to think of proper alias's for their sensei later to avoid suspicion. "Keep yourself behind cover, don't expose yourself for more than three seconds, and clear out one corridor at a time."

"Exploding tags?"

Sakura flicked Naruto lightly on the head. "We have to live in the bunker after we clear out any enemies, baka. Now, if there are any more intelligent questions?"

There was silence.

"I'll take point, then." Sakura said and signaled for the rest of the team to follow behind. "Remember to keep quiet."

Sakura gently nudged the heavy grey door of the bunker open with her sandaled foot- eyes narrowed when the hinges opened without a squeak. They'd either been maintenance recently, or an enemy nin had greased to hinges to get in undetected and both theories pointed to human habitation.

Sakura turned back to Naruto, meeting his unusually serious eyes with her own. He nodded, agreeing with her silent assessment.

Clamping down on her chakra until it was a mere trickle, Sakura slide fluidly inside of the door, careful not to jostle it too much just in case it was booby trapped. Her sandals tapped silently on the cement floor, the walls and ceiling just far away enough that she could touch them with her fingertips. The florescent lights flickered on and off, illuminating square panels of light before going black again.

She shivered, her breath clouding in the unnaturally cold air. Creepy.

Swallowing against the anxiety lodged in her throat, she motioned forward, using the universal hand sign for move out.

The corridor was long, going downwards at a slight slant to indicate that they were moving to the submerged part of the outpost. Periodically, an iron grey door would be set into the wall- great hulking doors designed to be resistant to explosives and lock picking. Sakura noted that even the hinges were on the inside; designed so that the enemy wouldn't simply knock out the hinge pins, bypassing the lock entirely, and the defenders could barricade the door.

Most of the doors were locked and no noises could be heard from within-Sakura assumed they were mostly storage for weapons and food- so they continued on.

With each step, Sakura thought she could feel her body become heavier and heavier. Her heart rate quickened and sweat beaded on her upper lip. She could hear whimpers from Jiraiya and the sound of Tsunade grinding her teeth.

Dread weighed down like thousand pound weights and every primal instinct in Sakura's body was screaming at her to get away. They traversed further and further underground, the air getting colder and colder with every step. Soon, Sakura could see her own breath as it puffed out in small clouds. Goosebumps broke out on her skin and she tried to ignore it the best she could, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering.

'Who keeps the AC this cold?' Sakura thought sourly, pulling on her gloves to try to keep her hands warm. 'And shouldn't we be at the end of this damn hallway already?'

Sakura froze before groaning, slapping her forehead with a gloved hand. How could she be so stupid!

Naruto shivered, grateful for his long sleeved orange jacket and overcoat. Kami, it was freezing! He blew on his stiff fingers, massaging them to try to get the blood flow to warm his cold digits.

Naruto.

Naruto looked sharply over to Sakura, blinking as her fingers formed the ANBU hand signs that had been drilled into his head prior to his induction into the BlackOps.

What? He signed back.

There's a genjutsu here; a loop that's making it seem like the hallway's going on forever. I don't have enough chakra to disable it. Sakura's signing was quick and precise, her clean movements getting the point across pretty quick. Could you…?

"Sure." Naruto said, his voice echoing down the hallway eerily. After all, secrecy wouldn't be an issue after he flared his chakra enough to tear down a super complex genjutsu.

"Get ready." He warned, before putting his fingers in the ram seal. "KAI!"

The intense wave of chakra washed over the group, pushing the two unprepared chuunin to the ground. Sakura, who had been exposed to such power before, had chosen to stick herself to the ground with chakra as to avoid such an ignoble position.

"Ow." Jiraiya muttered. "I think I hit my head…"

"It's not like it hit anything important." Tsunade sneered, wiping the dust from the bunker floor from her clothing.

"Tsunade-hime…" Jiraiya moaned piteously. "So cruel-"

"Shh." Naruto hushed his finger to his lips. He gestured to a heavy set iron door set back into what looked to be the end of the hallway, mere feet away.

"No locks to pick." Sakura muttered. "Probably a few feet thick at the least with the hinges on the inside…"

"Should you, or I?" Naruto asked his meaning clear.

Punch, or Rasengan?

Sakura gave him a sharp look before shaking her head. "Your jutsu isn't complete yet. I'll do it."

Naruto nodded, grimacing slightly. Damn it, he'd totally forgotten that, technically, the Rasengan wasn't even invented yet. He winced again. That was going to cramp his style considerably.

"Back up." Sakura warned, cracking her knuckles. "It's going to get crazy."

Jiraiya looked incredulously from the small, elfin women to the massive iron door. "You think you are going to punch through that?" He looked to Naruto. "Did that genjutsu mess her up?"

Naruto barked out a little laugh. "She was a head case to begin with."

"You're just going to let her-"

"Shut up baka!" Tsunade hissed, her gold eyes intent on her new master. "I want to see what she can really do."

Sakura grinned, drawing her fist back. A surge of green chakra spiked down her arm, reinforcing the bones, muscles, and ligaments for impact.

"SHANNARO!" Sakura yelled as her knuckles hit to iron -grinning as it buckled like aluminum foil under her strength- tearing it right off of its hinges and blasting it into the room beyond.

Naruto, Jiraiya and Tsunade dashed into the room the moment the door was clear, whirling around quickly to determine if there were any enemies lying in wait.

There were none.

It was worse.

"Oh gods." Tsunade muttered taking a step back as the rusty smell of day-old blood hit her nose, causing her to shudder and attempt to breathe through her mouth. The room was coated with the stuff; the broken surveillance equipment that monitored the surrounding forest from within the bunker was trashed and coated with a coat of blood, and it seemed that fingers had traced through it, giving it swirling patterns in some sick twist on a Konoha leaf symbol.

"Bastards." Jiraiya growled, angry but desperately trying to keep from gagging. "Was it Ame?" He was beginning to panic; this was not how his first command was supposed to go!

"Calm down." Naruto said, his voice stern, but a life preserver in this storm of doubt and indecision.

Jiraiya gulped as he looked to the older chuunin- gathering courage from Naruto's confident stance. Right, he and Tsunade were in charge, so they would act like it.

He took a deep breath, straightening his spine as he took in the carnage. He'd step up, and get to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on. He spread out, following the examples of his team- perhaps behind this row of cabinets…?

"Anyone found a body?" Tsunade called, stepping carefully over puddles of dried blood. Her training as a medic-nin had desensitized her to the sight and smell, but something about the redness of it…

"No." Sakura called back, carefully maneuvering around the broken husks of the surveillance and security center. Her eyes narrowed, taking in the amount of blood spattered across the room. "There may be more than one body," Sakura said, her voice carrying to Tsunade. "maybe the entire team was attacked?"

"Yo!" Jiraiya yelled from behind a row of servers. "I found someone!" There was a pause. "I think he's alive!"

Sakura was at his side in seconds, dropping to her knees to assist the pale faced chuunin. A gash cut across his chest, staining his clothes crimson from the waist down. He was feverish and his breathing shallow.

"He's anemic." Sakura barked, placing glowing hands on the chuunin's chest to try and clot the still sluggishly bleeding wound. There was too much damage for her to heal out right and she needed a blood transfusion right now.

"Tsunade!" Sakura yelled, and a beat later the smaller blond kunoichi was at her side, eyes intent on the patient. "Can you conduct a blood transfusion in the field?"

Tsunade blinked. "I know the theory."

Sakura shrugged. "Good enough."

She reached around behind her, grabbing her medical pack off of her belt. She dumped it out, spreading the contents out on her medical apron.

"Naruto!" she yelled.

"Yeah!"

"Give me your water bottle…and go try to find the others!"

Her answer was it thrown at her head, which she effortlessly caught without taking her eyes off of her feverish patient. Taking out a syringe, she shoved the needle through the cap, creating a small hole.

"Hand me that bit of tubing." Sakura ordered, holding out her hand. Tsunade wordlessly complied, staring as Sakura plugged the clear little piece of plastic into the bottle.

"Aren't you going to sterilize it?" Tsunade asked, blinking at the improvised IV.

Sakura nodded, gripping the bottle as she sent a spark of chakra into the bottle, superheating the remaining water into steam that she let out through the cap. "Clean." She muttered.

"Jiraiya, when I'm done, keep the IV above his head. Don't lower it under any circumstances." Jiraiya nodded his face grim.

Sakura took a syringe and stuck it into her vein, deliberately taking out the maximum number of milligrams recommended.

"Get it in the IV." She commanded, even as her head swayed and her vision slipped in and out of focus.

"Yes shishou." Tsunade mumbled, doing as she was told. "Are you-?"

"Compatible?" Sakura slurred. "Blood type O. Universal donor." She set her hands into the tiger seal, focusing her medical chakra into her blood steam, speeding up the creation of red blood cells. She steadied, shaking cobwebs out of her head. She'd be paying for the technique later – the body wasn't gentle when it was abused- but this man was the only link to whoever attacked.

"Give it back to me." Sakura commanded, her head clearing up.

Tsunade stared at her master like she was crazy. "You've already given the maximum-"

"I have a few medical techniques that help with hemoglobin production." Sakura said, hooking the IV to the fading soldier, sliding the needle neatly into his vein. "He needs at least another syringe of blood to get stable."

"Sakura-" Jiraiya tried to interject. If Naruto were here he'd want to stop her from doing something stupid, right?

"Now!" Sakura barked, holding out her hand.

Hesitantly, Tsunade handed the syringe to her master who immediately drew the maximum number of milligrams, for the second time.

"Get it in there." Sakura mumbled, her head spinning like a top and her stomach roiling. "I need a moment."

Tsunade bit back her instinctual sharp response. Of course you'd need a moment she thought viciously, you just lost almost as much blood as the patient!

"Sakura I just found- Sakura!" Sakura frowned and turned toward the blurry orange and red form over her teammate.

"Eh?" she muttered, blinking blearily. "Naruto-kun?"

She felt him pause and she wondered why. He was her best friend- she could call him whatever she wanted. It wasn't as if she made it a secret; other than Kakashi (who was more like a perverted uncle) Naruto was her family.

"What have you done to yourself?" he asked, his voice terse and clipped.

"She just gave up a pint of blood for an emergency blood transfusion." Tsunade explained, her face pinched as she examined the patients breathing, pulse and temperature. She took a kunai to the chuunin's vest, cutting it off so she could bandage the wound with a roll of gauze pilfered from her masters supply.

"A pint?" Naruto yelped, his face swimming into focus. "Are you crazy Sakura-chan?"

Sakura shrugged. "Jus' a little." She slurred.

"Baka." Naruto groaned as she fell into unconsciousness. "When'll she wake up?" This last question was directed to Tsunade.

"She'll be fine in a few hours." She scowled. "You've just got to wait for her to get her blood levels back up."

"Great-"

"Actually, it might take a little longer than that." Tsunade mused.

"Why?"

"I'm going to knock her out again for being stupid as soon as she wakes up."

Naruto smirked. "Get in line."

With Sakura out of commission and safely tucked into one of the bunk rooms located off of the main hallway (opened with a ring of keys on the comatose chuunin's belt), Naruto could get down to lugging the rest of the bodies out of the security room.

It seemed to Naruto, with Tsunade and Jiraiya in consensus, that it had been a surprise attack- the three other victims had been found with their throats cut while they were sleeping.

Perhaps the lucky survivor was on duty at the time?

At any rate, Naruto personally carried the three bodies into an empty storage room, setting them in body bags that had been found amongst the supplies kept at the base.

It was good to know that Konoha cared about the common soldier Naruto mused.

A messenger toad had already been sent to Konoha to report to the Hokage. Barely a day had passed when he had received a reply by hawk that indicated a team was on their way to collect the bodies and analyze the crime scene.

Currently, he was sitting on the roof of the bunker, shadow clones spread in a grid around him, meditating. He'd been neglecting his Sage abilities lately, and he found that he'd missed the wholeness of being a part of the huge circulatory system of the world.

He exhaled, carefully maintaining the balance of nature chakra, and sat perfectly still. To his left, a dragonfly whisked around lazily in the summer warmth. Behind him, a bee buzzed contentedly as it gathered pollen from the flowering vines on the bunker's surface.

He smiled, basking in the sunlight, his head lolled back on his neck. Mmmmm…

Naruto's awareness steepened, falling further into the cacophony of the life that thrummed around him. His spirit twisted along miles of small veins, spreading out like a radiant hotspot, soaking in the ambient energy. He felt warm.

In his state of enlightenment he could feel the life force's of his companions, each a pulsing color unique to them. Jiraiya was a throbbing mass of deep, vibrant blue; powerful and constant. Tsunade roared, her body swathed in golden heat that comforted and burned.

Sakura burned low, her energy barely a flicker as she slept off the effects of her technique. He could see that she was predominantly a red. Soft and pastel when resting but a blazing inferno when roused.

Naruto blinked, then screwed his eyes shut in concentration as a flicker of a different color met his senses. Orange…?

Before he could study it further, his senses buzzed alarmingly. From the direction of Fire Country there were five ninja setting a blistering pace- most a uniform swathe of leaf green, but one…

One was a malignant purple.

Naruto's eyes narrowed as he got to his feet, returning to his corporeal body, not bothering to shut off his Sage mode.

It had been a long time since he'd been able to see Orochimaru, and longer still since he'd been able to put a hole through one of those precious bodies of his.

He smirked. It was time for a date with destiny.


	7. Seventh Cycle

Sakura had trained herself to wake in an instant. Unlike Naruto, she didn't have the half-awake, drowsy state of contentment that often precluded getting out of bed- often she had to bolt out of her futon for an emergency surgery at all hours. She didn't have the luxury of deep sleep, something she found she envied more than Naruto's impressive chakra capacity and abilities.

Thus, when Naruto's chakra spiked, Sakura catapulted out of bed- brandishing the senbon needle she always had tucked into the collar of her shirt.

"Eh…?" she muttered, noting no enemies in the sparse, grey little room she had been sleeping in. "Naruto…?"

The chakra pulsed again, tickling Sakura's finely tuned senses. She twitched. When she had asked Tsunade-shishou to be able to detect chakra she hadn't expected it to affect her this much. While it definitely came n hand

Sakura frowned, slipping her feet into her boots that were placed beside the door and tugging on her kunai pouch and gloves that had been dumped into a pile next to them. Naruto was getting riled up.

She flinched, unconsciously speeding up. She might have to put together little bits of Tsunade and Jiraiya if they got in the way.

Naruto smiled to himself as he balanced in one of the trees overlooking the clearing, sage mode off as he stared down at the resting squad of shinobi. Two jounin and six chuunin; Naruto dismissed them, his eyes riveted to the dark haired, pale figure in a jounin outfit.

Orochimaru.

The young Sannin's youth had thrown Naruto off balance for a brief second- only enough to marvel at the snake's lack of height and threatening aura- before he jumped back into his more analytical thoughts.

Definitely still a ninjutsu user. he mused to himself, eyeing the lack of taijutsu muscle on the snake's thin limbs. Too young to get into kinjustu. Probably.

"Psst!" Naruto flinched, jumping a little as Sakura's voice filtered toward him through the leaves. He looked behind, seeing her pearched on a branch. He was a little sheepish; she had managed to sneak up on him, even if stealth was one of her better skills- she had to make up for her smaller chakra reserves somehow...

Sakura bounded to his limb, the one overlooking most of the patrol. "Konoha?" Her breath puffed against his ear.

Naruto nodded, pointing down at the pale form of Orochimaru.

Sakura blinked, squinting to make sure she was seeing right. "Orochimaru?" she asked, incredulous, still almost impercepteably quiet.

"Should we kill him?" Naruto asked, his voice as quiet as hers. "You could make it look like an accident." Despite his attempts at proffessionalism, Sakura knew that he'd have no problem snapping the little sannin's neck.

"We still need him." Sakura said, dissapointed despite herself. "He's useful in the wars. We can probably kill him when the Fourth Hokage is chosen- I think that's when he really started his mad scientist thing."

"Hmph." Naruto snorted. "Never thought that having Orochimaru alive would ever be a good thing. At least he's useful."

Sakura nodded.

"Border Patrol 8!"

Naruto nearly fell out of the tree when he heard Orochimaru's jonin partner bellow- his voice booming and echoing through the trees. Birds screeched at the sudden sound and took to the air.

"Border Patrol 8, this is Jounin Arisawa, leading a back-up team that you requested by messenger hawk three days ago." The man's voice retained its impossible decibel level. "I have the forensics personal and the coroner here to attend to the bodies. Please, show yourselves!"

Naruto shared a quick look with Sakura before shrugging and both of them dropped silently to the grass behind the group. They didn't turn around.

We weren't all that quiet, he thought, frowning as the Jounin continued to call for Jiraiya and Tsunade to show themselves, are they really that bad at-

Naruto stilled as he felt the telltale sting of cold steel on his throat. "Name, rank, and number." The voice that hissed out from behind him was cold and merciless; Naruto's blood boiled in rage.

Orochimaru.

"Namikaze Naruto, chuunin, no number," He said shortly, his teeth gritted together. "-and if you don't remove that kunai from my neck, I'll remove your arms from their sockets." The dark tone in Naruto's voice left no doubt he would follow through on his promise.

He may not be able to kill Orochimaru but he'd be damned before he'd allow himself to be threatened like a green genin.

To his left, he could hear Sakura getting much the same treatment, except with more leering and innuendo. He smiled when he heard the crack of knuckles on jaw and smirked when the disrespectful chuunin was launched half-way across the clearing.

"Pervert." Sakura snapped, rubbing her fist on her shirt to wipe the blood from his bruised jaw off of her knuckles.

"Ahem." Jounin Arisawa coughed, slightly embarrassed by his chuunin underling. "Yes, well," he straightened. "We received your message and we're here to conduct our investigation." He jerked his head at three of the chuunin, two of which had small red crosses embossed on their flak jackets. "We've got medics to tend to the survivor."

Sakura perked up, smiling slightly at fellow medical nin. "He's down in the bunker. I had to perform an emergency-"

To her surprise, she merely got a dismissive sniff and a toss of the head before the duo stepped past her toward the complex.

"Kunoichi."

Sakura's eyes narrowed as she picked up the whispered insult. It was in the same tone as one would sneer insults along the lines of whore or slut.

Ah, so that's how things stood. Sakura, and every other kunoichi in service, was aware of those kunoichi who didn'tserve their country by fighting; they were chosen to do their part by sleeping with yakuza and top administrators of foreign governments. They were necessary, but that didn't seem to matter to the two dismissive men in front of her. Her fist tightened, causing the leather of her gloves to creak; didn't they know that the intel they based their entire lives on was bought with the shame of the women they spit on?

Her generation had been lucky; she had been saved by Tsunade-sama, Ino and Hinata were protected by their families and Tenten... well, Tenten had managed to get a few scars that would've been hard for a whore to explain away as simple accidents.

Naruto was oblivious to all of this, however. He was rather focused on Orochimaru; watching like a hawk watching a mouse. One false move and Naruto didn't care- he was probably going to take the kids head off from his nervous twitching...

"Teme!"

Naruto jerked, blinking, half expecting the dour face of Uchiha Sasuke to peer out from behind a tree, smirking and smug. Instead, he caught sight of Orochimaru's resigned face moments before Jiraiya came hurtling out of the complex, a broad grin that reminded Naruto of his obnoxious genin days plastered to his face.

Tsunade came after, trailing behind at a more sedate pace but still smiling. Happy.

They were like Team Seven all over again.

Naruto sighed and relaxed totally, letting the tension ease out of his muscles. He watched distantly as Jiraiya thumped Orochimaru on the back and Tsunade struck up a casual conversation and cringed.

Dammit, now he'd feel guilty if he killed the little viper.

Shit.


	8. Halcyon Days

If Team Sarutobi noticed Naruto and Sakura's increased patrol frequency, they didn't mention it. The outpost had fallen into a routine since the medics and the relief team had cleaned up and refitted the small bunker.

Sakura would get up first- starting up the coffee and setting out something, usually ramen swiped from his own sealed away stash, and do a quick monitor of the perimeter sensors and boot up the transmissions systems to send an 'all clear message' to Konoha.

By this time, Naruto would be shuffling around, clad in boxer shorts and a plain black t-shirt- his hand weakly grasping the air until he hit the warmth of his coffee cup and ramen bowl. His hair, barely touching his shoulders, would be a wild mess without his forehead protector, which he only put on when he went back to his room to get dressed. Then they'd quietly slip out the front door and begin their allotted patrol slot- six hours away from the pot of awkward that Orochimaru had made their new acquaintance with their old sensei.

It was barely noticable to Jiraiya and Tsunade but Orochimaru and the remnants of Team Seven were subliminally aware of the tense atmosphere every time he stepped in the room. It was subtle, and barely there, but Orochimaru could sense it- something that only added to his distrust of Konoha's newest chuunin pair.

Orochimaru felt his eyes following the two as they moved, like prey eyeing a potential predator. The way they moved exuded training and experience- Sarutobi had mentioned them doing well enough in the jonin exams that if they'd been born in Konoha, they'd have made jonin hands down. It made him nervous and slightly on edge. They were an unknown; an unknown on the cusp of a warzone with his two utterly clueless teammates. In pitched combat, who was to say if they'd turn and stab him in the back if given half a chance?

He scowled at them across the clearing as they jogged back into view, slightly sweaty from their patrol. He trusted them about as much as he trusted Manda.

"Ne, Orochimaru-san," the pink haired one, Sakura, called. "there were some disturbances on the far northern bluff- some fallen rocks and such. I didn't see any signs of explosives, but..." she shrugged, flashing him a smile that went only an inch deep.

Orochimaru nodded slightly, turning away to continue his conversation with Tsunade. He caught the barely concealed sneer of dislike from Naruto and promised to keep an eye on them.

And his back to the wall.

"I'm bored." Naruto whined from his position on Sakura's bed; upside down, with his head on the dull carpet and the rest of his body sprawled across her comforter.

"I'm so sorry for you." Sakura remarked dryly from her desk, her pen scratching as she wrote their names in the patrol log, underlining their shifts for the records.

"Entertain me." Naruto pouted.

Sakura blinked. It'd been forever since Naruto had actually pouted, like he had as a genin on Team Seven. He hadn't since Sasuke, she remembered, frowning. She cleared her throat, covering the silence. "Well," she said, her voice cracking slightly. "you must be really bored. Usually you'd be out training right now."

Naruto huffed, blowing his hair out of his eyes. "For once, I actually don't have a technique to practice. That's why I'm boooored!"

"Boring is good." Sakura laughed, flicking a piece of scrap paper at her partner's face. "Boring means not dead."

"Really?" Naruto groaned. "I don't think I have a pulse." he crossed his eyes and let his mouth fall slack. "I'm deah' see?" Naruto managed.

She snorted. "That's tasteless."

Naruto sat up straight, the look on his face quickly going from Happy!Naruto, to Bitch,This Shit is Real!Naruto. It was really quite an amazing transformation, Sakura noted absently, before all her attention was pulled to his voice, dubbed his Hokage!Voice, which often accompanied the aforementioned serious Naruto.

"Sakura, we're in a war, right?" Sakura opened her mouth to wisecrack, only to be stopped short by one of her male companions looks. She nodded, silently. "We're going to have to be careful, right?" Sakura nodded, again. "We're going to have to kill a lot of people. Assasinations, search and destroy missions, the whole shebang. And we have another war to go. That's a lot of pressure, right? I mean, we basically have the weight of the future on our hands." He waved his hands around, as if trying to vaguely communicate the entirety of the Future. "We can't be so wound-up and touchy about it all the time, or we'll go crazy."

"Also," Naruto added, his grin coming back full force. "I'm technically your superior officer on this mission of SSSS- well, a lot of S's- ranked mission."

Sakura gaped. "W-what?" she sputtered. "You got a field promotion to chuunin. I made jonin six months ago!" And ANBU, on a mission to mission basis, she added.

Naruto grinned. "Nuh-uh. Guess who got promoted directly from chuunin to jonin, then to ANBU captain?" He gave her two thumbs up. "This guy!"

He took a second to bask in her astonishment, the smile on his face nearly splitting his cheeks when it morphed from surprise, to pride, to happiness. For him. Sakura-chan was proud of him. Naruto was highly aware that five years ago, she would have dismissed him, ignored him, berated him.

Sakura-chan, though she had always been one of his precious people, had become his inspiration, his proof that anyone could change. She had apologized for her behaviour once, when they been caught out on an A-rank mission together, trapped, fighting to protect a caravan from missing-nin. She'd taken his hand, just like she was now, and given him a hug. Sakura had whispered her apology in his ear and then turned back to fight; trusting him to make sure the caravan got out, willing to sacrifice herself to make sure that her team mate could complete the mission and come back and support her.

"Congratulations, Naruto." Sakura smiled, giving his hand a squeeze. "You've already done it once... I bet you'll be the first ninja to ever make ANBU twice."

Naruto's cheeks pinked slightly. "I think I forgot to thank Kakashi-sensei. I was so excited..." Naruto trailed off, his blue eyes trailing down to their still linked hands, and suddenly, their faces seemed a lot... closer...

Sakura felt her eyes flutter closed, and could sense that Naruto had done the same. An anticipation rose in her stomach, a fluttering of butterflies and hopes, and cold declarations of love on an icy mountain-

The alarm klaxon sounded, the sound so loud in the silence of their shared breathing that they both jumped violently, smashing their heads together.

"Oww." Sakura hissed, rubbing furiously at the lump. It was definitely going to bruise.

"What the hell!" Naruto growled, convinced the world was conspiring against him. That was the second time in his life he'd ever gotten so close to kissing Sakura, dammit (1). "I swear to Kami, if this is a drill or Jiraiya being an ass-"

The door to Sakura's room slammed open, revealing a bloodied and exhausted looking Tsunade. "Orochimaru... stayed. Attack... on patrol..." Tsunade gasped. Her breath hitched, and she was barely able to stagger over to Sakura's waste basket before vomiting.

"Slow down." Sakura ordered, her face stern. "And stand up. Doubling over like that makes it hard to breath."

Tsunade nodded, following orders by leaning against the nearest cement wall, wiping at the sweat dripping down her face.

"Now," Naruto said, calmly. "What happened."

It came out in a tumble, the words jumbled and stuttered, with Tsunade having to rephrase or repeat for them to understand. Apparently, it had been Tsunade and Orochimaru's turn to patrol, with Jiraiya staying at base with Naruto and Sakura. They'd gone to investigate the rock slide that Sakura had reported yesterday, only to have exploding seals carved into the very boulders themselves go off- separating Orochimaru from his teammate in the dust. She'd caught sight of at least fifty ninja before she was forced to flee.

"I heard him yell for me to get help, so I sprinted here as fast as I could." Tsunade finished, slumping to the floor, utterly spent.

Naruto and Sakura shared a look. "I'll get Jiraiya up." Naruto offered. "Be ready in ten minutes?"

"Five." Sakura answered.

"Five." Naruto agreed, turning to leave.

"Oh and Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"Bored now?" The look on Sakura's face was practically predatory.

Naruto chuckled, his laugh echoing down the corridor. "Not anymore!"


End file.
